The Christmas holiday season is always a special time of year as as friends and family try to visit each other and make up for lost time during the rest of the calendar year. This is no different in in the Hungarian hockey world as well.
If you would ask a person off the street what the Bejgli Cup was they would probably say it is some sort of baking competition where the contestants bake a poppy seed or a walnut roll. If you mentioned to someone that it is an athletic competitions the next reaction would be that it is probably something that was competed for around Christmas time.
As we all know the Bejgli is a popular dessert around this time time of year that people eat after they are already full from their Christmas Eve dinner. This is dessert roll is also popular in hockey playing countries such as Austria (Mohnkuchen) Czech Republic (makový závin) and Denmark (wienerbrød).
In this case the term usually is used to describe a scrimmage or a pick up hockey game between friends on the morning of Christmas Eve. This tradition that started in the 1970s and has been down through the generations of players and coaches. Miklós Séra, former national team member during the 1970s was the hockey coach at the Központi Sportiskola (KSI, Central Sports School) and every Christmas Eve he would have an inter squad scrimmage for the team that he coached, this was the original Bejgli Cup.
Coming out of the KSI program was current General Secretary of the Hungarian Ice Hockey Federation Zoltán Kovács. Kovács brought this tradition back when he was a youth coach for Ferencváros after retiring in the early 1990s. He would have an intrasquad scrimmage on Christmas Eve just like his former coach, Miklós Séra did. A couple of familiar names that took part in these games were Levente Szuper, Gergely Majoross, Tibor Kiss, Attila Hoffmann and Norbert Buzás. As the natural progression of time went on these players grew up and a number of them turned pro. Zoltán Kovács went from coaching into the administrative side of hockey by work for the federation, and the another edition of the Bejgli Cup came to a close.
The next big chapter in the Bejgli Cup did not really happen until the Zoltán Kovács players started to retire, this was also the first time when active pro and other senior players started to lace up the skates for this event.
Norbert Buzás current Women’s U18 national team coach and youth coach for MAC Budapest is someone who has just about split his hockey playing career right down the middle between Újpest and Ferencváros. Up until the age of about ten he played for Ujpest, which was followed by a decade at Ferencváros where he had been coached by Zoltán Kovács. came up through the Ferencváros youth system. He spent his first pro season with Tisza Volán but he returned after one season to the friendly confines of Budapest where he would spend seven seasons back in UTE and finish his career with two in Fradi.
Taking this large group of former team mates from both Újpest and Ferencváros, Norbert Buzás has been the organizer for the current known Bejgli Cup in which the players who came up through the UTE system take on the players from the Ferencváros youth system. This is the group of guys that were born in the late 1970s and early 1980s. From year to year you have former NHL draft picks, current referees, linesmen, current and former MOL League and EBEL players lacing up the skates. This season Újpest defeated Ferencváros 8-6 with an empty net goal, some of the players participating were Levente Szuper and active players Tamás Gröschl from UTE and Gergely Borbás from Dunaújváros.
FTC vs UTE Bejgli Cup winners (players born between 78-81)
2015 UTE-FTC 8-6
2014 FTC-UTE 12-7
2013 UTE-FTC 6-5
2012 FTC-UTE 4-2
2011 FTC wins in a shootout over UTE
Like the group of players that compete every year between Fradi and UTE a similar alumni game is played by the guys coming out of the MAC Budapest program, by players born between 1994-1997. Originally it was just guys in their late teens, it has now become a group that includes EBEL and MOL players, current national team members and also the Finnish Liiga as well. Some of these players are Gergely Arany, Kristóf Dobos, Gergely Korbuly, Balázs Sebők, Krisztián Nagy, Bence Stipsicz, Zsombor Garát, Kristóf Schmál and Árpád Németh.
“We usually get together Christmas Eve at the Kisstadion for a Bejgli Cup with the old team” said current Fehérvár AV19 player Gergely Korbuly “we let anyone to come down and usually we end up having a good game. It is always great to see everyone again especially the ones that don’t play anymore. This one hour game is always lots of fun”
Norbert Buzás is already starting on the next generation as the MAC Budapest youth teams also have started to have their own Bejgli Cup.
It looks like Miklós Séra’s Christmas tradition will live on for years to come.
