One of the guest coaches at this past U15 national team minicamp was none other than the 20 year old son of Tamás Sille, Timotej who came out of the Slovak youth system and played junior hockey in the QMJHL and for MHL squad of RedBull Salzburg. He took time out of his schedule to talk to icehockey.hu.
Your team RedBull Salzburg is not competing in the Russian junior league, the MHL, and you decided to leave, how come you are in Budapest at the season?
Glen Williamson asked me to before as a guest coach for the U15 camp, I have been training with the Fehérvár EBEL team.
Does this mean that we will see you playing for Fehérvár sometime this season?
I don’t have a team right now, I still have one more year of eligibility left in juniors but I would prefer to be playing with a senior team, right now this is what I’m waiting for. Since my father is one of the coaches at Fehérvár the opportunity came up that I practice with the team in the meantime. I’m grateful for the opportunity to get to play with these experienced players.
Has the idea of you staying in Fehérvár comeup?
It has come up but they have a set roster, I feel that the EBEL is a real prestige league.
After spending the last weeks with adult senior players, what's it like now to be around all these kids?
To be honest I really like how Glen is coaching these kids, I played at every level of the Slovak youth system but this completely different especially how he deals with the U15. These guys are really lucky to have a coach like Glen, who has been a family friend for years.
How would you compare the Hungarian U15 players to the Slovak ones?
I haven’t really seen Slovak U15 hockey since I was in that age group, if I would have to that the Slovak kids might be a bit for developed or technical the Hungarian kids are truly having fun in this camp, they want to play hockey and they are giving everything they have. They want to learn and develop, they pay attention and listen to their coaches, which is great. I see a lot of potential in these guys.
How do you feel about working with your father?
This has happened once before, when I was in U14, he was playing for Skalica and he was also one of the U14 coaches, that was pretty rough. Two years ago I trained with him before I went out to Canada. It has changed since I have grown up but he is still tough on me but I know he wants to pass on his knowledge to me.
A lot of of junior players want to play in Canada, how was that for you?
I really liked it, it was a new experience for me and a great season. It was a different lifestyle and hockey style as well. I really liked that everything out there was just about hockey, which fits my personality. New doors were opened for me up not everything always went accordingly as planned, the following season I was in Salzburg which was also positive. During this past season I took part in a really great development program that RedBull has, and this was exactly what I needed. When you are young you need to play a lot and practice a lot, this was the opposite in Canada, we played a large amount of games but you already have to be ready physically to start the season. In Salzburg we travelled a lot but we also practiced a lot as well. There was a large amount of conditioning training and running, they also paid attention to the small things as well. They wanted to perfect the technical side of things, the RedBull brand academy also tries to have the best of everything for the players so they can develop to be better.
Does this mean that you would rather stay in Europe than to go back to North America?
I am opening to everything and I’m will to do what it takes to play at the highest level, it doesn't matter if it's in Europe, North America or even in Africa.-said Timotej with a smile.
You also gave a presentation to the kids, how much of your hockey experience were you able to pass on to the guys?
I introduced myself, I told them who my parents are and where I am from, what my career has been up until now, where I have played the last couple of seasons. They had a number of questions and we ended up having a long conversation about Canada and the MHL, these guys were really interested in these topics. Glen wanted be to bring this world closer to them, I told them how i got to where I am and how I trained, and they had great questions.