The season has long been history for the ice hockey Bayern league club TSV Peißenberg.
The players deal with the newly gained free time in very different ways.
Four "ice hackers" report.
Peißenberg
- The best season for an amateur ice hockey player is very different this year.
"If you assume that the play-offs would be now," muses Korbinian Sertl.
Instead of guarding the box of TSV Peißenberg in the crucial season phase of the Bayernliga, the 28-year-old goalkeeper has withdrawn completely into the private sphere.
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Korbinian Sertl also sees advantages in the hockey-free time.
© TSV Peißenberg
On October 18, 2020, the "ice hackers" played their last home game of the season against ERSC Amberg.
After that, Sertl suddenly had more time on the weekends to finish and move his house with his in-laws.
He has also bought a dog to accompany him and his wife when hiking or ski touring.
"We now have the time for it," said the keeper happily about the newly won freedom.
More time for a dog - and for cleaning
Manuel Singer also has more time now than before.
Until last autumn, ice hockey determined the rhythm of the 27-year-old defender.
“You were tied up there from an early age,” he remembers happy days.
When he looks at himself in front of the mirror, Singer realizes that he is suddenly missing this order.
According to his own admission, he has become a bit fuller around the hips.
“Because the lifestyle and diet have stayed the same, but there is no exercise,” he explains of the ten pounds that he now carries around with him.
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Manuel Singer is not an individual athlete - it is difficult for him to stay fit without his team.
© TSV Peißenberg
Actually, Singer and Sertl are athletes who, in the Bavarian League, are right on the borderline between sophisticated amateur sport and timid professionalism.
During the normal season they train three times a week to be fit for the two games on Friday and Sunday.
But the lockdown has meant that they have slowly lost their shape, while in your own four walls everything is sparkling and flashing.
“It has never been so clean in the booth,” reports Singer.
He records something unique in terms of “housework”.
On the other hand, he is currently caring for his body less conscientiously and persistently.
Singer tried jogging and weight training for himself, but at some point he realized that he is not an individualist.
“It's different when you play team sports from an early age,” he says.
"It's hard to motivate yourself if your teammates don't incite you to push yourself to the limit."
But nobody in Peißenberg wants a season like the last one.
Maximilian Malzatzki is still shocked by the almost empty stadiums in which the games were played in October.
In Selb, the defender played in front of 3,000 spectators, against SC Riessersee before 2000, and then only a maximum of 200 spectators were allowed due to the hygiene regulations.
“I thought it was really bad,” he admits.
“It was very sad without fans”.
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Maximilian Malzatzki thought it was bad to play in front of empty seats.
© TSV Peißenberg
For Dominik Ebentheuer it was a sensible decision that the club drew the line after a long game and beat an egg over this short season.
“Not making any more ice cream was the right thing to do,” said the 29-year-old defender.
There is a lot of understanding among the TSV players, both for their own department management and for those responsible from politics.
“I was happy when the government said: Zapfenstreich,” admits Singer.
If the functionaries of the Bavarian Ice Sports Association were not able to take a clear stance, the players saw it as a relief that they at least freed the government of the ballast that was burdened them with the numerous game cancellations, catch-up dates as well as hygiene and quarantine regulations were.
The fact that the club steered a clear course and always refrained from investing in expensive contingent players or looking for loopholes in the hygiene regulations caused Sertl great respect.
"Hats off to the TSV division."
The situation is even worse for the offspring
Nevertheless, there were cases of hardship.
“The situation is bad for us”, is Maximilian Malzatzki's conclusion, “but it's worse for the youngsters”.
The up-and-coming coach, who two years ago looked after the U11 “ice hackers”, expects that the lockdown will make many children “more console addicted” or migrate to clubs that offer them ice cream and playing time.
Even Korbinian Sertl speaks of a lost year for his own youth: "The young players stay on the spot if they cannot develop further." For the 2020/21 season they are missing many games and training units that are difficult to compensate .
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Dominik Ebentheuer thought it was right that the ice should be thawed.
© TSV Peißenberg
And there is another problem on the horizon for the gatekeeper if the pandemic is not over by next winter. "Ice hockey will be very difficult for the clubs in the lower leagues if only the professional leagues are allowed to play." Sertl fears that the base will be damaged. The past season has already made some of his colleagues think. “It is a question of whether you should continue doing this professionally or concentrate more on your work,” admits Sertl. The trainer at "MTP Präzisions GmbH" saw the lockdown ordered by the government as a relief anyway. If the season had continued, the general increase in the number of infections would also have increased the risk within his team that he or his teammates would become infected with corona while playing sport. "I think that then 50 percent of the team would have had problems with their employers," Sertl speculates. So there is only hope for better times: "I am happy when we can sit back together again," says Sertl, who misses the get-together with all of his teammates the most. In comparison, the failed play-offs mean the smallest loss.
