Weekend Read: Tibor Marton Women's Head Coach

The Hungarian Women’s U18 team will be participating in the Division 1 World championships starting on January 4th in Vaujany, France. Head coach Tibor Marton had a chat with icehockey.hu.

How would you grade the training camp that you just had, is the squad at the level that you and the coaching staff would like them to be at?

We received a finalized program at the start of the season that we had to follow, I think that everyone worked hard to to accomplish what was assigned to them. In my opinion we are a better team than we were back in August.

Dwayne Gylywoychuk will be joining the coaching staff in France, during the season he did not have that much time to spend with the girls, what was he responsibility during the preparation process?

In the progrma he is in the role of being a mentor coach, he was with us the last time in France, we have been in constant weekly contact with him via e-mail and skype throughout the season.Iin icehockey you have to always be ready to learn something new and I think that is exactly what happened I think we have learned a lot from him.

There are three players born in 1999 and four in 2000 who are in the team, how have they been able to keep up with the older players?

We don’t really have any other choice, they will have to pick up the pace of the older players, the older players have more international experience that the younger ones but we do not have 22 players from 1997, this is what we have and not its not worth worrying about it. In an earlier interview I made the mistake of saying that we have a young team, which it is, but it should not matter how old everyone is, everyone is on the U18 team regardless of their age they have to be able to stand their ground in this competition. The girls that made the team are the one that we believe can get the job done.

Exactly half of last years team has “graduated” out of the age group, how much as this team been able to come together as a team?

I think that this group has completely come together as a team, this is a group of girls that really want to improve. Based on my experience it is great to apart of this group.

What do you expect from the girls at the World Championships?

We expect that regardless of the opponent we will play 60 minutes according to our game plan, game in and game out and when we get back home we know that everyone left everything out on the ice.

How do you see the opponents that you will be facing in France?

It is a strong field of teams made up of countries that have strong hockey cultures, in the last couple of years we have been able to join this group. I think the field can be split into two groups, Hungary, Slovakia and Austria being the first one and  Germany, France and Norway is the second. Tibor Maron concluded with a quote… Fairytales do not teach kids that dragons exist, they already know that, it teaches them that they can slay the dragon.