ZURICH – The Swiss Ice Hockey Federation has named the coaching staff of the men’s national team for the 2012 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship.

Sean Simpson will be joined behind the Swiss bench by assistant coaches Lance Nethery and Manuele Celio. Andy Murray will help the Swiss team as an advisor, while Benoît Pont was named video coach.

Murray is the most illustrious name on the list. Having led Canada to more World Championship golds (3) than any other coach, the former NHL bench boss will not only come to Helsinki to help the Swiss as an advisor for the third year in a row, but he will also be inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in Helsinki on 20th May.

Lance Nethery will work with the Swiss for the first time. The former NHL player was most recently GM of DEG Düsseldorf in Germany where he enjoyed a long coaching career. He also had a short coaching spell in Switzerland with SC Bern in the ‘90s. As a player the Canadian wore the jersey of the New York Rangers and the Edmonton Oilers and won two Swiss championships with HC Davos.

Manuele Celio has already been Simpson’s assistant coach at the 2010 IIHF World Championship in Germany. Celio was the head coach of the Swiss U20 national team for the first time at the recent 2012 IIHF World Junior Championship in Calgary.

Switzerland will play Kazakhstan, Belarus, Finland, Canada, France, Slovakia and the United States in its preliminary-round group in Helsinki.