The Polar Bears are ready to take the next step.
After a strong regular season in which Miskolc had three head coaches, a number of injuries and league suspensions the team lost in the first round of the MOL League playoffs to eventual champion Nové Zámky.
“Obviously everyone was disappointed with how the playoffs went as we thought we had a good enough team to win the league. Myself I was unable to be on the ice due to injury which made things even more frustrating personally,” said forward Tyler Metcalfe.
Miskolc starts the season with a stronger team and look to have consistency from start to finish during this season. The management has brought in long time youth coach Gergely Majoross from MAC Budapest as the head coach. Majoross spent a season and a half at the tail end of his career with the team. Majoross won the MOL League as a player with the Budapest Stars and a number of Hungarian titles with Székesfehérvár.
Like last year the team will have a strong North American presence in the club with all six imports being from the continent, Tyler Metcalfe has his Hungarian citizenship, Krisztián Nagy, Balázs Gőz and Majoross all spent at least one season of juniors on the other side of the pond.
In the previous season the club had the a two headed goalie with the two Davids, Duschek and Gyenes splitting the time in net. Both players had career years, but to boost some competition the club brought in national team goalie Bence Bálizs. Bálizs is supposedly waiting for a contract offer to go aboard but do not be surprised if he sticks around for the rest of the season.
The defensive unit in Miskolc should be better than last season. Matt Boyle resigned for another season, Balázs Göz came to his home team after spending a year in France and Péter Láda is back to play with his twin brother Balázs after being gone for three seasons. Jesse Dudas and Kalvin Sagert have come over from the North American minor leagues, look for Dudas to spend a couple years in Miskolc and get his Hungarian citizenship.
During this past offseason a number of strong goalscorers had left the team but it is safe to say that the management and Gergely Majoross have brought in equal if not better talent. As mentioned before national team player Krisztián Nagy is back after spending last season in the U.S., another key acquisition for the team has been long time MOL League player and Romanian national team player, Tihamér Becze. It will be interesting to see how the two North American boys, Zach Cohan and Keegan Dansereau who spent last season together in Sweden, play.
Metcalfe continued on “Majoross is excited to be here and it shows, it is apparent he has done a lot of work in the offseason to prepare, he is very organized and focused. Training camp has been demanding but very productive, players are forced to pay attention to details and he holds everyone to that high standard everyday whether it’s an on ice practice or a simple off ice workout. We are all excited about what the season holds.”
Make no mistake about it Miskolc want to make it at least to the finals and to bring home Miskolc’s first MOL League title.