Hungarian hockey is representing itself at this year's IIHF High Performance Camp with six hockey players and ten staff members, which is the top U18 Women’s camp by the international governing body.
IIHF board member Dr. Zsuzsanna Kolbenheyer is the chairwoman of the camp, aside from here there are is a total of 15 Hungarians who are in Finland for the camp. Judit Jasó is taking part in behind the scenes programs as she is the team manager for not only the women’s senior team but also the U18 and U15 national teams. Also in attendance is Márta Hegyi who is one of the Hungarian organizers of the World Girls Ice Hockey Weekend, Gabriella Gallyas and Tamás Sashalmi are taking part in the physiotherapists. Attila Kozák is a strength and conditioning coach, Botond Bedő video coach, László Medgyes and Dávid Szabó are there as equipment managers with Attila Somogyi picking up tips on long term development. Joining the staff members in Finland were defencemen Fruzsina Mayer and Bernadett Holzer as well as forwards Zóra Gottlibet, Petra Pavuk, Lotti Odnoga and Dorka Szick. Also in attendance as an ambassador of the sport is Zuzana Tomcikova, Slovak Olympion as goalie coach for the women’s senior and U18 national teams.
The players and the staff members have been evenly split through six teams as not to have members of one nation all playing for one team. The six Hungarians are on six different teams with Canadian, U.S., Russian, Finnish, Swedish, Swiss, German, Austrian, Japanese, Korean, Danish, Norwegian, French, Czech and Slovakian team mates. This also that the girls can meet players from other hockey cultures and possibly make lifelong friendships.
“The camp is great, there are a number of players that I know, which makes things easier” said Lotti Odnoga, who spent the past season at Vermont Academy in the U.S. “There are a number of girls from last years camp as well, some who I was teammates with two years ago and a pair of French twins that I am friends with as well.” There as very little chance of happening but this year she was assigned the same jersey color as two years ago with Czech goalie Veronika Bucifalova and Chloe Aurard, one of the two previously mentioned twins, who happened to be her teammates in Vermont.
Apparently the reason for only one of the sisters participating in the camp was because the other has already committed to an NCAA Division 1 university, a number of schools send scouts to this event.
The coaches and staff members are kept busy as well, aside from doing their part to help their assigned team succeed they are also sitting in classes and listening to presentation to help them in their area of work in the future.
“We have a meeting everyday with the NHL video mentor coach where we discuss what happened that day and what the coaches would like us to tape that day.” said Botond Bedő, the video coach for the Hungarian Women's team, who has been working with Kristopher Young of the Ottawa Senators. “During the first two meetings we worked with the Steva video program, well mostly everyone else since I am the only video coach that has used this program in the past. One of our assignment is that we need to put together a highlight tape of our team for Friday night. We are also tapeing our own teams and breaking down the film during the team film sessions”
