After playing playing in two A-Pool World Championships with the Hungarian national team and 14 seasons in Székesfehérvár Csaba Kovács is moving on to the next chapter in his career. He will be playing for his former teammates Gergely Majoross and Bence Svasznek for MAC Budapest in the MOL League during the upcoming season. Icehockey.hu was able to catch up with Csaba right before the start of training camp.
“This was a very difficult decision to make as I really liked playing in Fehérvár. I owe a lot to the organization and I have a number of great memories and I made a number of life long friends when I played for the club. It was hard to make the decisions however I had to look at this from a number of sides, I thought it would be the best for me to be around the family. I had a couple of offers from abroad but none of them fit the criteria that would be good for all of us. We felt that the best situation for me and my family was to stay in Budapest. I was also curious to see what the change would be like from the hockey point of view as well. I am currently a student at the Sports University and working towards a degree in Sports Management, I also need to keep an eye on what I will be doing after my hockey career ends. Budapest was clearly the logical move for both me and my family and my hockey career as well.”
And why exactly MAC?
I had a couple of other offers that I seriously considered, I basically spent most of my summer considering all of my options. Once I decided that I would leave Fehérvár I looked at every offer and weighed my options. I had a number of great offers, and none of them had any reason really to be turned down however the situation with MAC had the most to offer. The team has a good chance at winning the championship, I have a very good relationship with the coaching staff and they let me know what they were expecting from me, and I really liked this. Taking all this into consideration this was why I signed with MAC, I think I made the right decision but only time will tell.
You mentioned that the coaching staff told you what they expected from you, what is this and will you be taking over Viktor Tokaji’s role in the locker room?
Yes exactly next to the on ice expectations they have given me an important role in the locker room as well from the leadership point of view. There are a number of players younger than me on the roster. I will be trying to pass on what I have picked up the past number of years on to the younger players and I hope that they will be able to learn from my. I know what the coaching staff expects from the hockey side and how hard they will work for the common goals since I was their teammate for a number of years.
How hard will it be to mesh with your new teammates as only Tamás Pozsgai and Bence Bálizs were your teammates in Fehérvár, with only a couple of guys from the national team as well?
I do not think it will be that hard, aside from the import players I know just about all of them either from the national team or through my brother. It also helps that I know the thought process and the logic of the coaching staff.
This coming season will be your first season in the MOL League, from the outside looking in how much has the league changed since the start of the league?
I have yet to play in the MOL League but in every passing year in the Hungarian Cup we noticed that the MOL League teams were improving from year to year. I will be lucky to be playing in th arguable the strongest Hungarian/MOL League ever with Brasov and Dunaújváros being better than last season with Újpest also improving during the offseason, not to mention that Miskolc will be strong again this year. There are more and more Hungarian national team players coming back and the imports are getting better and better as well. Our goal this season is to win the title this year.
Something interesting is that you are almost replacing your brother in MAC who left to sign with your father’s former team Újpest, was this talked about during the offseason?
The idea to play with my brother has come up, hopefully we will play together sometime in the future. This season we will be going against each other, clearly we will be rooting for the other’s person success but also for our own team’s success. It will be interesting situation for sure and we will see how it will go. Hopefully we will meet in the MOL League finals.