Leading up the world championships we had introduced the support staff of the national team, the equipment managers, the physio team and the team managers, now we move on to the coaching staff. First it will be the strength and conditioning coach and the goalie coach.
STAFF
Head coach: Rich Chernomaz
Coaches: Gergely Majoross , Diego Scandella, Tamás Sille, Viktor Tokaji
Goalie coach: Gary Clark
Strength and conditioning: Sándor Puskás
GM: Attila Nagy
Team leader: Lajos Imre
Doctor: Ernő Majzik
Physio: Imre Bagonya, Tamás Sashalmi
Equipment managers: József Nagy, Gábor Tornyi
The creation of a championship winning team is a giant puzzle where all the pieces, even the smallest ones fit together.
This came together last season in Krakow as the team will be competing in the A-Pool this season.
A large part of the success was the coaching staff, two of which was Gary Clark, goalie coach and Sándor Puskás strength and conditioning coach so keeps the guys in top shape for Rich Chernomaz.
Gary Clark
The 56 year old Clark naturally spent his playing career between the pipes but at the age of 27 he was already coaching in Switzerland, he would move on to clubs in Germany and Italy, in Krefeld he coached Levente Szuper. He also worked with KMH and during the 2012-13 season he started working for the Hungarian national team. Last season he made the jump to MAC Budapest where he worked with the MOL League squad along with the U20 team in addition to his work with the Hungary.
“This week we held the in house tournament and every goalie was assigned to a team,” said Gary, the grandfather of the team and compared to his younger coaching staff members took his time drafting the team that he would coach during the week. “I had some tough decisions to make but as they say Rome wasn’t built in a day, Michelangelo took his time painting the Sistine chapel.”
Clark brings a tremendous amount of coaching experience to the staff where everyone knows what they are responsible for and they carry their own weight.
“I work with the goalies and Toki and Tomi Sille are in charge of the defensmen, Diego and Mogyi work with not only the forwards but they also spit the work with working the video and other game preparation, which is getting more and more important as we get closer to the world championships. So far everything has been going well and we have seen some great games during this week. There are players that have a real shot at making the world championship roster, there are players who we wanted to give a taste of what they could expect in the future. Then there is that group of guys where anything can happen and could end up on the final roster. This was the main premise of this past week, so that we can evaluate everyone,” said Clark.
We also asked him what is the environment like within the coaching staff and where guys chirping at each other during the in house tournament.
“We like to have a good time and we are always talking back to each other, we are always together and sometimes we need to release some steam and have fun.”
Sándor Puskás
If we mentioned that physiotherapists sometimes take care of players not only physically but also mentally this could also be said of the strength and conditioning coach, Sándor Puskás. His everyday employer is MAC Budapest and thus the Methodical center is his domain, aside from this he is one of the most easy going and nicest people in the world.
He also possesses a vast amount of knowledge that is not only used be the youngest of youth players but also 36 year old Márton Vas who sticks to Sándor’s workout plan even when we was playing in Italy this season.
“Everyone thinks that in North America everyone is working with some super-duper brand new equipment, but it's not like this,” said Puskás, about the Methodical Center where this past week the national team players were doing all their physical testing.
“It would not be a stretch to say that from the equipment point of view we have pretty much everything that is needed. Of course out there everything is a bit larger but that might be about it. Of course every team that I visited out there had a facility like this or even larger where here we have just this one in the country.”
However this one is being used by every national team including the men's senior.
“The men's and women's national teams are down here from about September to April and the teams are always rotating. Each age group is down here about once a month for a minicamp. Everyone is inquisitive and asking questions when they get down here."
Fotó: Mudra László
ROSTER
Goalies (5): BÁLIZS Bence (MAC Budapest), KISS Bence (DVTK-Jegesmedvék), HETÉNYI Zoltán, RAJNA Miklós (Fehérvár AV19), VAY Ádám (Debreceni HK)
Defencemen (13): ORBÁN Attila, SZIRÁNYI Bence, VARGA Arnold, WEHRS Kevin (Fehérvár), KISS Dániel (UTE), GARÁT Zsombor, MESTYÁN István, POZSGAI Tamás, STIPSICZ Bence (MAC), DUDÁS Jesse, GŐZ Balázs, SAGERT Kalvin, (DVTK), VAS Márton (Fassa)
Forwards (22): BANHAM Frank, BARTALIS István, BENK András, KOVÁCS Csaba, KÓGER Dániel, NAGY Gergő, REISZ Áron, SARAUER Andrew, SÁRPÁTKI Tamás, SIKORCIN Ladislav (Fehérvár), CSÁNYI Karol (UTE), ERDÉLY Csanád (Sioux Falls), SOMOGYI Balázs (DVTK), GALLÓ Vilmos (Linköping), HÁRI János (Leksand), KÖNCZEI Áron (Debrecen), MAGOSI Bálint (Briancon), NAGY Krisztián, TERBÓCS István (MAC), SEBŐK Balázs (KalPa), SOFRON István (Klagenfurt), VAS János (Slavia Praha)
SPRING SCHEDULE
Exibition games
April 15th, Friday, 18.00 (Budapest): v Austria
April 16th, Saturday, 16.30 (Vienna): @Austria
April 20th Wednesday, 19.00 (Budapest): v Slovenia
April 29th, Friday, 19.00 (Budapest): v Kazakhstan
April 30th, Saturday, 19.00 (Budapest): v Russia B
World Championships, Russia
Group B (St. Petersburg)
May 7th, Saturday, 12.15 (11.15): v Slovakia
May 8th, Sunday, 12.15 (11.15): v Canada
May 10th, Tuesday, 20.15 (19.15): v France
May 11th, Wednesday, 20.15 (19.15): v Finland
May 13th, Friday, 16.15 (15.15): v USA
May 14th, Saturday, 16.15 (15.15): v Belarus
May 16th, Monday, 20.15 (19.15): v Germany
(CET)