The hockey season is here and that means the “Weekend Long Read” is back on icehockey.hu for the 2015-16 season. First up is a conversation with national team captain Márton Vas to kickoff the season.
How much were you able to feel on yourself and other that the upcoming season will be a special one?
Everyone has it in the back of their minds that at the end of the season the A-Pool world championships and that they would also like to be there. The effect of being promoted isn’t that we have arrived but that it is extra motivation, everyone knows that no one has a guaranteed spot on the team, anyone that is not in the proper physical condition will be left at home, Cherno will be keeping an eye on this as well.
How much help is it that Hungary has already been in the A Pool one, in 2009 in Switzerland, can the experience gained back then be useful now?
The coaching staff will do their scouting and will know what to pay attention to. It will come down to us players to know what we need to do to perform at our best. In Switzerland we went out there and thought OK let's do this and we ran right into a nice beating but once we calmed down and played together we had a close loss to Germany. What was great at this past years world championships was that we did not fall apart after the loss to Kazakhstan, we knew their goal was to win every game and ours was to win promotion.
One of the most dry and regurgitated answers is “We have to pay attention to ourselves,” but this time it is fitting since winning one or two out of the seven games should be enough to stay in the A-Pool.
Yes exactly. We haven't really talked to Cherno about the game plan yet but we will have to concentrate on our strengths. Everyone will have one or two teams that is a must win for them to achieve their goals. Against Canada we will not be able to go out onto the ice thinking that we will be able to throw our weight around because that will not end good for us. They won't hold back after a couple of goals, they will keep on coming. We pretty much know what kind of systems or tactics the smaller teams will play with and what is their bread and butter. We will need to play smart and use the games against Canada, Finland, and the U.S. to our advantage, to test and tryout things so we are ready when we face teams that we have a chance of picking up points against.
Realistically no one expects to beat all those top teams.
Exactly, the results are always secondary in hockey, we say "Put your head down and work hard and after 60 minutes look up at the scoreboard and you will see what you were able to accomplish." I have seen teams come back from 5-0 and also teams blow a 5-0 lead. We lost to South Korea like this in 2013 in Budapest, after a 4-1 lead, and we missed out on being promoted.
But if things didn’t end up like this Hungary probably doesn't beat Kazakhstan the next day...
Probably not, but this is again proof that hockey is unpredictable.
Have you looked at the schedule, have you circled the teams that are beatable?
No, because I need to make the team first. If it's spring and I’m on the training camp roster then I will look ahead, but it is clear that we have the best chance against France and Germany.
How much can Hungary’s chances improve with the development of the younger players?
A lot, that is the natural process of things, it's good if someone doesn't make the team it's because the next generation is pushing them out and not because their joints don’t work and can't walk anymore. Luckily this process has started for us as well and no one is irreplaceable. It used to be that for 20 years everyone know who those twenty odd players where that would make the national team every year. The youth system is producing a lot more players and now it's not picking 22 out of 25 players but 22 out of 40-45 players. This is still a lot less than the larger countries but we are getting there. If this continues we can make the move from being a Division 1 hockey nation to one that is bouncing up and down between the A-Pool and Div.1.
When you were at the world championships in 2009 did you think that that was the highlight of your career or that you would be back in a couple of years?
I didn't think of it back then. When we were back in Division 1 there was always one team better than us, mostly Slovenia, but then we started to get closer and closer to the fire. Twice we were unlucky against Italy in Budapest but in the meantime our team developed and we were not satisfied with just winning a medal. This is what we work for every day, to get better every day, to become a little bit better.
Photo: László Mudra