In a recent article on the International Ice Hockey Federation's website interim Italian national team coach Ivano Zanatta said that Italy could look to the Hungarian Federation in building up the youth program, to have more native Italians in the national team.
Zanatta praised his former assistant in Lugano, Glen Williamson in what he has accomplished with the Hungarian youth system “I have to pay my compliments to Glen Williamson as he has made huge strides with what he has done with Hungary, and that is taking huge steps forward with the home product and produced players, we have to copy and paste this, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. These are things that are difficult decisions and hard decisions but they are the right decisions to make in the future, to have a strong base in the future where you can add the nationalized players if needed.”
This comes only weeks before the IIHF U20 Division IB World Championships that will be held in Dunaújváros Hungary from the 14th through the 20th of December. Most the roster will be made up of a group of players who have come up under the national team tutelage of Glen Williamson. They will be going for their fourth world championship gold medal in four attempts, Rich Chernomaz will be coaching the team.
In 2013 they won the D2 A Group at the U18 level and in the 2013-14 season they won the D1 B at U18 as well as the D2 A group at U20, with a couple of young men also making their senior team debuts.