WIth Dorottya Medgyes spending the 2015-2016 season at North Dakota and Zoltán Erőss committing to D3 school Southern Maine, Hungary also has their first men’s NCAA Division 1 hockey player as Olivér Herner has committed to the University of Maine.
Call it what you will, but after this past year’s World Championships there is a larger number of hockey players moving to North America to play juniors and college hockey, but more importantly to leagues that are a higher quality. Last season Csanád Erdély was the only Hungarian playing in a top league on the other side of the ocean. This year we already know that there is a good chance that Bence Stipsicz and Zsombor Garát will be opening training camp in the U.S. with a number of players on tryouts hoping to get invited to camp and also a good handful playing in other North American junior leagues. For most of these players the final goal is playing NCAA hockey.
Herner went about this in a different way, but still ended up where he wanted to be, “To be honest I wrote to every Division 1 program in the United States, this is about 60 schools, a number of programs wrote back saying that they are set for the 2016-17 season, but we should keep in touch for the season after that. Two schools showed interest in me along with about 15-20 Division 3 schools. I can only blame myself as I started the process somewhat late.”
The 6ft. 7in. blueliner has one thing that can not be taught, and that is size, North American coaches love big players, who can reach across the ice. “Two weeks ago I went on my official visit and met with the head coach and with the coaching staff, we talked for 2-3 hours, the head coach mentioned that based on the film that he saw of me he said that I am in a great situation here.”
“There were a number of coaches that helped me, Balázs Kangyal and Gergely Majoross along with Szabolcs Fodor who I can thank,” said Herner “one last coach who is not Hungarian but helped me from the other side, by this I mean that he helped me through the contacts he had was Glen Williamson” when asked who he can thank with helping him with the big move.
We all know that when playing college hockey the person is not just an athlete but a student-athlete, “I do not have to pick a major during my first year of studies, I will be taking the core electives and classes that everyone is required, I will most likely be declaring my major at the start of my sophomore school year.”
Olivér will be traveling to the U.S. in about a month where he will be walking the same college campus as such NHL stars as Paul Kariya, Jimmy Howard and Garth Snow.