And now? - (Final) part 3 of a small, ex post series about my coaching philosophy and experiences

Sentiments & Conclusions

The return of the Thin White Duke
Throwing darts in lovers' eyes
Here are we, one magical moment, such is the stuff
From where dreams are woven
Bending sound, dredging the ocean, lost in my circle
Here am I, flashing no colour
Tall in this room overlooking the ocean

_{Station to Station - David Bowie}

A famous line from above song’s lyrics goes “it’s too late - to be late again”, something you think about when getting older and especially when again you’ve come to some crossroads in your life. But then again, “it’s NOT too late - to be grateful”. And this is how I feel - grateful. Grateful for getting the chance to coach a team for several years, grateful for all the experience gained, for alle the people I had the chance to meet during my days as a hockey coach, all the interesting talks and discussions. And, watching a Devils' game, I realized I’m emotionally still feeling like being their coach (which is kind of unfair, as the current coaches do an excellent job!), it’s obviously not so easy to flip the (mental) switch, turning from team member (which I always considered myself) to visitor.

But, besides all these emotions, what remains from these years?

First of all a consolidated team, ready to battle for championships. A team taken serious by others, ready for the next future steps. On the other hand, all the personal experience gained, a bunch of memories of success and failure. And the conclusions thereof. So, what were the lessons learned?

• Communication: probably the main factor for success or failure, not just in sports but in almost any situation. Successful communication is transparent, open, empathic (yeah, you’ve heard all that before, didn’t you?). Sounds easy, can be pretty hard. Often we’re faced with situation that force you to either communicate or act immediately (think of decisions on the bench). My take: act! And communicate right afterwards…
• (Former) experience: definitely helpful. But not indispensable, as long as you’re willing to analyze and learn. Having little no experience in a certain domain can definitely lead to proper solutions, sometimes far off the beaten track. Don’t get me wrong, at times I was close to become desperate because of totally unknown and unexpected coaching situations, especially in my early years. I simply didn’t have the adequate experience as a hockey player. But then again I thought about double Stanley Cup winner Jon Cooper (Tampa Bay Lightning) who became a professional hockey coach with virtually no player experience. In the end gaining experience is more important than having experience!
• Decisions, doing things right: as discussed earlier…

Future Plans

Whatever happens, I’ll leave it all to chance
Another heartache, another failed romance, on and on
Does anybody know what we are living for?

_{The show must go on - Queen (Mercury)}

Personally I will certainly spend (much) more time for my audio work, so expect a lot more posts on audio engineering stuff for the upcoming months and years. I have plenty of projects in the pipeline that I simply didn’t find the time to pursue during the last years.

Music will also play a much bigger role (again), listening, going to concerts as well as playing my guitars and keyboards, which I virtually haven’t done for years.

But besides all this I will most probably also stay in the hockey field, I’m planning to enter the grounds of sports management after a certain cool-down phase (which I consider absolutely necessary). The idea is to further consolidate and professionalize women’s hockey in Styria, bringing the sport to European (EWHL) level and establishing a top team here in Graz. This should include structures for professional junior player recruitment and development, in cooperation with all local (men’s) hockey teams as well as building an EWHL as well as a (DEBL) farm team. This means that in the future all Styrian (men’s as well as women’s) hockey teams will have to work together to improve the women’s game. Bringing all these stakeholders together seems quite a challenge, but I’m willing to go ahead.

So, stay tuned, the best is yet to come 🙂

Finally…

Some of us remember those T-shirts from the 80’s and 90’s stating “My friends went to … and all I got is this lousy T-shirt”. Now, I’ll leave you with exactly - this 👇🤪