With the first Monday in September a new series is starting on icehockey.hu in which those Hungarian clubs will be introduced that a youth system, this time its Gepárd JE and icehockey.hu talked to Kristóff Keresztury the tecnical director.
Despite your young age you are a very experienced coach. How did you get involved in hockey and when did you start your coaching career?
I saw a picture in USA Today of a hockey hit and that got me interested in the sport, I started coaching in my teens when I was at MAC, was working with the youngest age group. I spent just over ten years with MAC.
How long have you been with Gepárd and what is your title with the club?
I joined the club during the spring of 2014 as the technical director, that was the year that the Gepárd arena was built. I received the task of putting together a program that would be streamlined and could be built upon to develop players in the future.
The club is taking great strides forward, what are some of the changes that have happened since you have joined?
The first step was to get more coaches involved and to have a larger coaching staff. Next we set goals for the organization overall and also for each age group. The first year we concentrated on how we practiced, we also are trying to get the younger age groups to really love playing hockey.
In how many age groups does Gepárd JE have teams and how many coaches does the club have?
We will be competing in five age groups, three teams in U8 and U10 two in U12 and a U14 and U16 team. This is a pretty fast pace, it is hard to add a new age group every year be we do not intend to lower our expectations, we have received help from other clubs along the way as well. Currently we have 10 coaches working for us.
What goals have you set for your team and what are you personal long term goals in hockey?
Our goal this year is to get better, so that every team perform well in their age group. We do not measure development in only the league standings but also we look at how players get better over the season. We motivate ourselves and try to give them the best coaching possible, the more we teach them, the more they will know and the better they will be. This is the mentality at Gepárd.
My personal goals are not necessarily limited to only coaching, I spend less time on the ice and more working with coaching development and also working on developing the future of the club.