Why Michael Pohl, former Rosenheim national player, moved from South Tyrol to the Baltic Sea: Quality of life is more important than money
Munich - On February 10th at 7 a.m. the roof of the ice rink in Sterzing in South Tyrol collapsed under the weight of the snow.
Almost 1,100 kilometers north on Timmendorfer Strand and half an hour later, Michael Pohl “already had it all on his cell phone”.
Pohl thought to himself: Seven o'clock, “I often unlocked the door there.
And sometimes I didn't leave the hall until 9 p.m. "
Michael "Mitch" Pohl (53) from Rosenheim was a well-known German ice hockey player, champion with the Starbulls, national player.
After that he became a trainer.
He worked for six years in Sterzing, the first village above the Brenner.
He won seven Italian titles, which was possible because he sometimes coached several youth teams.
"You have a lot of memories in there, that does something to you," he says to the news of the collapse of the hall.
And he remembers: "There were moments with a lot of snow, the hall was of a certain age and was sometimes closed for days." He could still have been there because the Sterzing Broncos gave him a " fresh five-year contract ”, but he had moved a little further: to Bruneck, to HC Pustertal.
Pohl managed the offspring and managed the first team to play in the AlpsHockeyLeague of Austria and Italy.
And just when HC Pustertal was ready for the playoffs in March 2020, the announcement came: the season is over.
"The Bergamo topic has picked up speed." Corona came via Italy, via South Tyrol.
Michael Pohl and his wife then experienced "two months of massive lockdown: there was military on the street, you needed a certificate for outside, the entrances to the shops were checked", on the Pustertaler Landstrasse, a traffic artery in the region, you have "everyone Heard a car for ten minutes ”.
A year ago, the Pohls thought a lot.
"Corona has shown what can happen overnight." Mitch Pohl thought of his former Rosenheim teammate Wacki Kretschmer: A legendary defender, cardiac death at 59. In May 2020, then: Peter Schiller, against whom he had often played , a long-maned striker, always good for a controversy: Heart failure at 62. Pohl says: “It must also be about quality of life.” He and his wife decided to move to the sea, they have relatives on the Baltic Sea and on the island of Rügen.
You can also be an ice hockey coach on the Baltic Sea.
The Timmendorfer Strand ice hockey and tennis club has existed since 1985, and Hawesta put a lot of money into it and brought the club up to the second division.
A few bankruptcies and renaming later, there is the CE Timmendorfer Strand.
He plays Regionalliga Nord, fourth highest class.
When he heard that a trainer was wanted on the Baltic Sea, Mitch Pohl answered.
Timmendorf first had to consider whether it would be feasible.
It was, and Pohl really wanted, "even if it's not that lucrative".
It appeals to him to get a club to “rethink completely”.
All or nothing: The Pohls have completely moved to Timmendorf.
Lübeck is the next larger city, but it takes another two hours to get to Rügen.
However, as in South Tyrol, the corona problem caught up with Mitch Pohl.
“The preparation went normally, from mid-September to October, but everything was shut down in November.” The upper league is a professional sport, the regional league is no longer.
In December, the community thawed the ice in the hall, which is actually not far from the beach, which repeatedly creates desires for the property.
“I think the season is over.
The ice will no longer run up. "
The season consisted of a single test match: in Adendorf.
“A rivalry like that between Landshut and Rosenheim,” Pohl said.
His Timmendorfer won 6: 3, although Adendorf played with six foreigners.
"An aha-effect for us, our players were incredibly hot afterwards." But nothing more came.
Pohl laughs: "We are undefeated this season."
Now they all have to wait for the next season.
In the meantime, the Timmendorfer Hall, with a capacity of almost 2000 seats, is being prepared.
The location, which is exotic from Bavaria, has its own ice hockey culture, and Michael Pohl from Rosenheim wants to expand it.
But he also often thinks of Sterzing.
And hopes that something new will emerge there: “The stadium was in a condition that made you think about it anyway.
Sterzing's location is attractive for teams from abroad, which is now also an opportunity. "