For the third consecutive season national team goalie Bence Bálizs will be playing for his third club, this time moving to Budapest.
“A couple days after the season closing awards dinner Balázs Kangyal got in contact with me, I already had an offer from France but I felt that playing only about 26 games would but little, after all the other goalie was to get some playing time as well. I really wanted to see what I can do playing 50-55 games in a season” said Bálizs to icehockey.hu
Last offseason Bálizs left his home town and parent club Fehérvár AV19 to find more playing time, this led him to the MOL League side Miskolc. Bálizs turned in a stellar season as Miskolc completed the treble as they won the Hungarian title, MOL League title and the Hungarian Cup. Personally he led the league in goals against average and made it back into the national team as he missed the cut the previous season.
“I waited until last week for an offer that I would like from Miskolc but unfortunately it never came. Now I stand in front of a new challenge and I can’t wait for the upcoming season to start.”
This offseason he is on the move again, this time to expansion team MAC Budapest where he looks to be the number one keeper and a veteran and calming presence that could be week on the back end of the ice.
MAC Budapest looks to be building a strong team as the club has stated on their social media portal, they plan on announcing one new bit of information every day in the upcoming weeks.
“Based off of what I have heard of the type of players the club would like to sign I can only have positive feelings, I think we will have a young tough team. This could be seen last season during the UTE-MAC matchup, the young guys managed to get under the skin of veteran players who have played over hundreds of top flight games during their careers, and this can be important because it doesn't matter who face on the ice.”
Bálizs is the fifth player from the national team to move on to a new club in the offseason joining János Hári, Balázs Sebők, Bálint Magosi, and Csanád Erdély.
MAC will be calling the recently renovated Tüskecsarnok their home ice, this means that there will be ice for most of the year in the multifunctional arena.
The soundings with regards to the team are nice, in some areas it will be at a level that I have not yet experienced in my career and I can’t wait to hit the ice with the team”