He was the Tölzer master coach: mourning ice hockey legend Mike Daski

Created: 12/29/2021, 09:36 AM

From: Patrick Staar

Mike Daski has always cared about children.

In December 2011, young players from EC Bad Tölz said goodbye to him for retirement.

© uva-press

He led the EC Bad Tölz as a coach to the German championship and was one of the greatest sports legends in the Isarwinkel: Mike Daski.

Now he's died.

Bad Tölz / Reichersbeuern

- Anyone who tries to reproduce Daski's vita in an article inevitably fails: A life as he led it does not fit in a single report. Whoever goes down the stairs to Daski's party room gains a small impression. The wall is littered with memorabilia from an extraordinary career. Team photos of EC Bad Tölz and SC Riessersee hang next to each other, surrounded by dozens of club flags. Ice hockey legends Erich Kühnhackl, Alois Schloder and Gordie Howe, with whom Daski was friends, smile from black and white pictures. Laughing, son Michael Daski pulls a machete out of the roof beams. A plaque indicates that Daski received the gun for third place at an ice hockey tournament at SC Riessersee - heaven knows why.

Mike Daski was worn on hands in 1966 after winning the German championship with the EC Bad Tölz.

© tk archive

Ex-Tölzer Löwen trainer dead: Mike Daski found the first ice skates in the rubbish

Mike Daski has Ukrainian roots, was born in Winnipeg / Canada in 1930 and grew up in poor conditions.

Daski found his first ice skates in the trash.

"One was red and one was black, and both were much too big," he once recalled in conversation.

“I had to hide them with the neighbors because my mother was against sport.” Her son tried all kinds of sports - and was successful everywhere.

He was Canadian youth and junior champion in baseball, Canadian runner-up in soccer, provincial champion in American football and junior champion in basketball.

Mike Daski: Former waiter in the Trans-Siberian Railway, then master trainer in Bad Tölz

But Daski's real art was ice hockey.

After a brief stint in Western Canada, he moved to Europe.

There worked as a waiter on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

In 1949 he came to the Herringay Racers in England and worked there as a lifeguard.

“There he learned how to cook spaghetti sauce,” says his wife Gisela with a laugh.

“When he made the sauce, he was in his element.

Nobody was allowed in the kitchen for a day. ”Every guest appearance abroad expanded his cooking skills.

In Switzerland he learned how to prepare the perfect cheese fondue - his favorite dish.

In 1955 Mike Daski landed at EC Bad Tölz

In 1955, the native Canadian landed at EC Bad Tölz - and saw his first away win in Füssen. Otto Wanner, at the same time chairman of EV Füssen and president of DEB, was upset about the defeat: foreign player-coaches were banned on his initiative. From then on, Daski was only allowed to play in the Tölzer 1b team. But that didn't prevent him from setting accents in Tölzer ice hockey. Daski was the first to consistently promote the next generation of ice hockey players. His crate training is legendary: the Canadian rascal got loads of them from the Obermayer fruit shop and used them to build a training course on the ice surface. The players had to jump over it sideways, forwards, backwards. In 1964 he got another offer to train at the ECT.The win of the German championship in 1965/66 stands out from this connection. When things went downhill at the ECT, Daski had to run for the third time, but in 1976 he was no longer able to avert relegation from the 1st Bundesliga.

Death of the Tölzer Löwen Meisetrainer: "Mike was calm, a gentleman," says his widow

At that time he was already married to his Gisela.

He met his wife at the NCO club in the Tölzer Flintkaserne: "He was friends with players from the American ice hockey team and was up almost every day," she remembers.

It was “not love at first sight”, it was only in the course of time that she began to appreciate his style: “Mike didn't cling, he was calm, a gentleman.” Incidentally, Daski was a gifted dancer.

“He didn't give up, and somehow he got me around.” The two married in 1973, and in 1975 their son Michael was born.

She experienced many other coaching stations.

In the Bundesliga, her husband coached SC Riessersee, EV Landshut, EHC Munich and Berliner SC.

In Austria he was a trainer in Salzburg and Graz, in Switzerland at EHC Kloten and HC Montana.

In the Netherlands he coached the Tilburg Trappers and Geleen Smoke Eaters.

At HC Meran, Daski was voted “Coach of the Year” in Italy, and he led the Rosenheim Sports Association into the major league.

“In principle, we had a weekend relationship,” says Gisela Daski.

"I had to look after my parents - my mother was not healthy and my father was unable to walk." Given these general conditions, vacationing was out of the question.

This "all was not always easy".

Even after the coaching session at EC Bad Tölz: Mike Daski's heart always stayed in the Isarwinkel

Michael Daski junior particularly remembered the stations in Graz and Nordhorn: “In Graz I learned to drive in the club car.

And in Nordhorn, a player handed my father a gallows in the dressing room because the training was too hard for him. "

Wherever he went in Europe: Daski's heart stayed in the Isarwinkel.

His place of residence always remained in Reichersbeuern, until he was 79, Daski was on the ice as a trainer with the Tölzer offspring.

Mike Daski: He traveled to Canada every year until his 78th birthday

What made him special? "He was very modest and frugal," says Gisela Daski. Her husband has always rejected the idea of ​​writing memoirs. Despite his great career, his father never pushed him to ice hockey, says Michael Daski: "He said that I should do what I do best - and that is working with computers for me." His father is always aware been that there are more important things in life than ice hockey. That is why he only used young players when the school grades were right: "A lot of parents were not at all pleased."

Daski traveled to Canada every year up to his 78th birthday, when he became more and more troubled by dementia.

"When he stopped working as a junior coach, things went downhill because he had no more work to do." Then there was also a stroke: "The last few weeks have not been nice," says his wife.

Shortly before his death, the 92-year-old came back home: "When he saw the flowers I had painted in his room, he smiled - and fell asleep."

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