The holiday period is usually not about rest for hockey players, the schedule of most leagues is perhaps the busiest at this time. Volán’s draw wasn’t easy either, but in the past few days the team, including the professional staff, got some rest, so that at the beginning of 2024, they could summarize the experiences of the past year. 2023 was a special year for Dávid Kiss, the head coach of Hydro Fehérvár AV19, as he got the big opportunity and became the first member of the professional staff of the blue and whites after the departure of Kevin Constantine.
– During the holidays, we had a very small, relaxing time just to be with the family, then came the training sessions and the matches. Looking back to 2023, I received a very nice task that I had been waiting for for a long time. It started like a fairy tale and continued like that, I really enjoy it to this day. Towards the end of the year, we got into a small negative spiral, which if you look closely at the draw, you can see that in the last two weeks we played a match practically every other day. We couldn’t handle this physically and mentally, many of our matches ended in overtime because we didn’t have enough energy and couldn’t win in regular time. Overall, however, if I only look at the year, I have a fantastic year behind me from the point of view of hockey – Dávid Kiss told our newspaper.
As the head coach also mentioned, in the past period the move for Fehérvár did not work out as the team would have liked. The process can perhaps be traced back to the big wave of injuries in November-December, where sometimes even with the addition of young players, the team could only stand with three lines. At that time, Volán was still in the lead, but as the injured came back, it was necessary to join the ranks, and the tight schedule squeezed the company.
– From the point of view of injuries, as the team dwindled, we came together more and more, we didn’t want to cling to the excuse that we lost because we weren’t good enough. Everyone gets a lot of ice time, even those who maybe had less until then, everyone took advantage of the opportunity, the young people also got a role, the move worked out well in terms of energy level and also in relation to the opponents, we had a lot of domestic matches at that time, we had to travel less. Now that the injured have started to come back, we have broken the ranks again, we have scattered the players who were missing before in each unit. However, in addition to that, we played every other day, we traveled a lot, this Christmas period was stressful, and instead of everyone being able to recharge in an intimate atmosphere with the family, we traveled by bus and stepped on the ice every two days. Unfortunately, this is also why we collected fewer points.
This woodiness is best seen in the third trimester. Previously, Volán’s great strength was that it usually decided the fate of the meetings in its favor in the last twenty minutes, but in recent weeks this trend has reversed, in quite a few cases, victory slipped out of the hands of the blue and whites in the last minutes.
– When we were fresh, we solved the third thirds, but with so much travel, fatigue sets in and it’s hard to recharge. This was such a period, we don’t want to make a big problem out of this, we don’t press the panic button. We will try to get out of this, collect as many points as possible and stay at the top of the table.
There is really no reason to panic, since even though Fehérvár slipped from first place, the team is still in the top three. A tough week awaits the team that scored only two points in the last four matches, as the opponents will be Bolzano, Salzburg and Pustertal in that order. Dávid Kiss’s team can make the most of the fact that the players had a rest, and the team will play all three matches on home ice.
– The squad got two full days of rest, and there is training on Saturday morning, in the afternoon. I feel that this was good for the guys, two hours before the ice training, the majority of the players were already here, this shows that they managed to recharge. It was also very good for me, even though I’m not on the ice, I don’t get physically tired, but the guys were under strain both mentally and physically in the last period. Personally, I tried to recharge my batteries with my family, I was able to be with them a little – said Dávid Kiss, and then touched on the challenges of the near future. – We have to be ready, this week will be very difficult, three great teams will arrive, it will increase the atmosphere to play at home. We know that our record is not the best against these teams, we are the best against Pustertal this year, but it will be in the third match later this week, not even 24 hours will pass after Salzburg, I hope we have enough energy, but the successes will give us energy and confidence we can win. This week can be two-edged, as much as it can pull the team out of this smaller hole, it can also push it further down. However, scoring against this caliber of opposition can be a confidence booster. Anyway, we have nothing to be ashamed of, as we are still at the forefront. But to keep it that way, we will need quite a few points in these three meetings.