For the second time in half a year Viktor Tokaji is retiring, after from the national team he has now retired from being an active player.
With his birthday being January 11th 1977, Viktor Tokaji is in his 40th year on this planet and this is his second year that he was working with senior national team at the World Championships, because of this it is not a big surprise to anyone that Viktor Tokaji is retiring.
The MAC Budapest team captain had 29 points in 45 MOL League games and 4 points in 11 playoff games. He also played in Fehérvár (2007-2015), the Swedish club Huddinge IK (2006-2007) and for his hometown Dunaújváros (1994-2006). We played in 222 games for the Hungarian national team where he was a part of the magic in Sapporo in 2008 and played at the elite level in 2009 in Switzerland. He is a multiple Hungarian champion and Hungarian cup winner as well as everyone's Toki.
“It wasn’t to long ago that I was able to put a period on to the end of it,” said Viktor Tokaji on the MAC Budapest facebook page, “I spent a lot of time thinking what would be the best solution. I talked to friends, former teammates, and coaches about what options I have and I took a lot of things into consideration. If I was looking at the big picture this might be the best for me.
I would like to thank everyone who helped me take this step. It was a hard decision because I had to listen to my head instead of my heart, I gave my self enough time to let everything settle down. I talked the most with my wife about this since this will have a large impact on her and she supported me to the fullest.
The timing and the opportunity was right and when these two things cross that's when it's time to start thinking. I had to keep two things in mind, first I was not getting any younger. There were some couple close calls with my shoulders and I need to thank my body that it stude up to the physical test of an entire season.
The second, the time I would be putting in as a player during the season will be taking away from time, my career as a coach. Last year I had a chance to start the next part of my career in hockey but I wanted to be a part of the birth of a new team, to be apart of it when they placed the cornerstone, I think this happened successfully.”
Viktor Tokaji will continue his hockey career as a coach with the U16 team for MAC Budapest.