Roman Rotenberg received everything and a bit more at SKA.

To understand why all this is important for Roman Rotenberg, it's helpful to begin from his childhood. His first sport was judo, which was a family activity. However, in 1991, the Rotenbergs relocated to Helsinki, where 10-year-old Roman was introduced to hockey for the first time. Although he found the game captivating, it was difficult to find a team due to his age.

In an interview with RIA Novosti, Roman Rotenberg said, “We found a team, but it was far to travel. Everything started happening quickly. I realized that I lacked skating skills, as I started late and the other guys were better than me. I had to catch up with them, so I spent all my free time at the public skating rinks. By the age of 15, I had already started catching up and surpassing everyone, as I trained for 6 hours on my own. We practiced 3-4 times a week. Then I got to college, where we had ice training in the mornings, followed by school, and in the evenings, I trained at the gym and on the ice.

During matches, Roman was called “hare” by his peers and even some opposing coaches. He now looks back on these situations with a laugh, but at that time, they made him very angry.

At the age of 19, Roman had to choose between hockey and further studies. He wanted to continue playing hockey, but his mother insisted on education. This led to an argument, and in 1999, Roman was ultimately sent to study in England. A year earlier, his father Boris Rotenberg had returned to Russia.

The influence of the Rotenberg family grew rapidly. In 2002, they acquired SMP Bank, in 2003, Gaztaged, a subcontractor of Gazprom, and in 2008, Stroygazmontazh acquired five construction companies from Gazprom for $400 million.

Upon completing his studies in London, Roman returned to Russia in 2006. In 2013, he explained in an interview with the Finnish publication Helsingin Sanomat that his father helped him arrange an interview with Alexander Medvedev, the CEO of Gazprom Export (now the president of Zenit). Roman emphasized that he received no guarantees and that the interview itself did not signify anything. This led to him becoming Medvedev’s assistant for external communications – a role that was completely different from what he had been taught in England. However, Roman and Medvedev discovered a shared passion for hockey. Two years later, Medvedev became the first president of the Continental Hockey League, and Roman headed KHL Marketing, where he was finally able to put his knowledge into practice before joining SKA.

In 2011, Gennady Timchenko became the head of the SKA club's board and asked Roman Rotenberg to take charge of the marketing department.

“At that time, everyone in St. Petersburg was only talking about Zenit,” Rotenberg recalled in the same article Helsingin Sanomat. “We completely revamped SKA’s media strategy, down to the brand logo. Now SKA has the best cash flow in the KHL. While 4,000 people used to attend matches five years ago, now the number of spectators is 12,000.

Over time, Roman Rotenberg's influence at SKA increased, and while he was officially in charge of marketing, he actually managed the club's operations fully. SKA has always been the wealthiest club in the KHL, but they only became champions in the seventh season of the league, three years after Rotenberg joined. In 2017, they repeated this success. This led to an increase in Roman's influence in the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, resulting in a trend where the head coach of SKA also became the head coach of the Russian national team.

According to Fontanka, since 2014, Roman Rotenberg has been involved not only in management but also increasingly in the coaching staff, player development, and preparation. For the Pyeongchang Olympics, 15 hockey players from SKA were called up to the Russian team, which was coached by SKA head coach Oleg Znarok. Even CSKA during the Soviet era did not always have such representation in the national team. Sources state that as head of the coaching staff, Roman Rotenberg planned to prepare the players for the most significant events of the four-year period, resulting in victory for the Russian team.

Subsequently, the coaches at SKA and later the national team began to mysteriously change every year – Oleg Znarok, Alexei Kudashov, Ilya Vorobyov, Valery Bragin. Roman Rotenberg's coaching ambitions were increasingly discussed publicly. Many former and current SKA players claimed that the club's vice-president took part in training.

Roman Rotenberg first took on coaching responsibilities on September 23, 2020, when almost the entire team and staff fell ill with covid. Many expected SKA's youth team, including 16-year-olds, to fail, but in reality, the team played only one game, drew with Ak Bars, and earned 5 out of 6 points on the road.

It was revealed that in 2019, Roman Rotenberg received a diploma from the eleventh graduating class of the Higher School of Coaches of the Siberian State University of Physical Culture and Sports.

The head of the educational institution, Dmitry Bernatavichyus, described Roman Rotenberg as follows in an interview with Sport24:

He has his own way of genius and is very knowledgeable. He is deeply passionate about hockey and is very enthusiastic about the sport. Most importantly, he is determined and eager to continue developing. He could have stopped and not pursued further studies, as many people do. However, this person seems to be committed to learning and advancing.

Roman Rotenberg himself explained in an interview with Fontanka in October 2020 about his unexpected role as an SKA coach: “I have been involved in hockey my whole life. For the past five years, I have been fully dedicated to the work at SKA headquarters. I may not have been visible on the coaching bridge, but that doesn't mean I wasn't prepared for the work we have been doing together over the past five seasons in both SKA and the national team. Of course, starting these duties directly brings different sensations. It's like flying a fighter jet or driving a Formula 1 car, where you have to make swift decisions and know every button by heart. Before my coaching debut, I was well-prepared thanks to all my life experience.

In the same interview, a Fontanka correspondent asked him if he was ready one day to become the head coach of SKA, to which Roman Rotenberg replied: “Never say never.”

From the very beginning of the 2021/22 season, Roman Rotenberg had already fully taken his place on the coaching bench and never left. On January 4, the status of SKA head coach was officially assigned to him.

“Over the past month, we have tried the option when Roman Borisovich serves as the head coach, and it all worked, there is a result,” explained the now former head coach of SKA Valery Bragin. – Therefore, it was decided to consolidate this state of affairs and formally. I will continue to work as a head coach.

If everything is really as Bragin says, then there really is a result: after a record losing streak, SKA managed to return to first place in the Western Conference, even with players who have never played at such a level.

For everyone who follows the club, it is obvious that all the key decisions in the team, both in the preparatory phase and during the games, have long been made by Roman Rotenberg. By and large, the board of directors of SKA brought the formal side to the actual one. Note that the board includes Gennady Timchenko, Alexander Medvedev, Viktor Kruchinin, Alexander Dyukov, Vyacheslav Tyurin and Roman Rotenberg himself.

It is possible that Roman Rotenberg fulfilled his childhood dream: he did not become a hockey player because of his mother’s decision, but now he leads one of the best hockey teams in Russia. At the same time, we must remember that the position of head coach brings with it a higher responsibility for the result. It is the head coach who is responsible for both success and failure. We don’t know yet what the career of coach Roman Rotenberg will turn out to be, but in any case, this is a historical case.