so here he is. Harijs Witolinsch. The eyes focused on him, the cameras, as if he was an alien, a Panda bear at the Zoo, freshly imported from China. But it’s the BCF-Arena, Freiburg, Witolinsch at the Davos gang, and this is admittedly a strange image.
Because in the last 22 years, Arno Del Curto as always , until he resigned at the end of November. In this picture, it is important to get used to. Witolinsch, 50, from Riga, is Del Curtos successor, he signed until the end of the season. The goal of the League.
But who is Harijs Witolinsch? And why many ice hockey fans were in Switzerland, this is the question, as the HC Davos, presented to him on Thursday? She had hoped for a bigger name in the hockey world? An Unknown in Switzerland is not Witolinsch. Just that it’s been a while, as he made a name for himself.
As a player, he came in 1992, shortly in Switzerland, on the search for a new hockey home. After three months in second – and third-tier North American Teams he arrived in Chur and thought: “I’m in a dream land!” Other times, as it were, been recalled Witolinsch. “You don’t travel, couldn’t from Eastern Europe in Switzerland. You needed a visa, it was complicated.”
In the dream land, he experienced the sportive nightmare. In spite of the many Witolinsch gates of Chur, the Last of the NLA was in a fight with the B-master, he pulled the Shorter descent. The B-masters and intermediates: Davos with Mats Waltin, Del Curtos predecessor.
How to do it here: The important experience as a player
A Relegated. It Witolinschs reminds new Team at the beginning. Offensively non-existent, defensive with wiel probably just want an out – of- the HCD occurs. The Best thing for him and the scarce 0:1 behind after 20 minutes. What’s going on in Witolinsch? It is striking: again and again, he is encouraging the players, especially the young.
A Team that lives, he had hoped for, one that shows self-confidence. He doesn’t see it. Not yet. He was flexible as a Coach, said Witolinsch. He worked, mostly as an assistant, with the KHL-team as well as the Latvian and Russian national team, became world champion. The Russians had to touch, the need he says. From his years as a player in Switzerland, he did not know that the working with West Europeans.
This time as a player in Switzerland. Hardly descended, left Witolinsch in 1993, the country is still nothing to suggest that it should be his second home. The NHL attracted, it was for the Center in just eight games for Winnipeg, otherwise, he was back in the farm team.
Witolinsch then went a year in Switzerland to Rapperswil and a season in Sweden. Then it was time to return to the EHC Chur, thanks to the heart’s blood and the money of President Ruedi Timothy a “Powerhouse” of the NLB, and one that should be in 2002, the house of cards collapsed, and in the Amateur hockey disappeared. But first, there were the good years. “This time in Chur, she was the most Beautiful,” says Witolinsch today.
“Harijs not came with us, of course. He was open to the West,
In his first year with distance Topskorer, oriented” with a crack he players and Fans. It was the time when he earned the legend status in the EHC. The second-best Skorer, with an impressive 36 points behind, Andreas Fischer, today boss of the Swiss referees.
A very good friend, says Fischer. In Chur, played and trained at that time, often people from the former Soviet States, “classic Russian” would have called the players, remembers the fisherman. “Except Witolinsch.” If the players are involved in the output, were the “Russians” of their vodka to celebrate parties among themselves – that was for the Swiss, maybe it’s better that way … “Harijs not came with us, of course. He was open, Western-oriented,” says Fischer.
He is happy on the reunion. The “Sunday newspaper” contacted, wants Fischer to have the first to be the cell phone number Witolinschs. “The contact was lost, then there were no mobile phones or social media,” he explains. Came to a Meeting, but already in 2006, as both started their second careers: Witolinsch as a coach in the 2. League in the Pikes in upper Thurgau, fishing as a Referee.
Witolinsch often may not like the funniest contemporary look, but the fact that he has a sense of Humor, Fischer noticed in this Play: “He was always correct. But when I missed a penalty, he called me on the ice fisherman, as before, when you met striker were and the gate of never.”
The trainer of career, you started at pike’s upper Thurgau
to meet The goal, the Witolinschs Davos players do, suddenly, in the middle third. The transformation is amazing as it is: The team, the lives, the brave – she leads 3:1 after 40 minutes. It is a change in how you saw him earlier with Del Curto, the gang often. He had pressed the right buttons, it was called then. Whether Witolinsch also found these buttons?
How to do that, he learned the Pikes of the upper Thurgau. His patron, the Lette is today grateful to: Richard Stäheli, 65, an entrepreneur, still connected by friendship and one of the first well-wishers to Witolinschs signature in Davos. Stäheli, at the time, club President, built the hall of the Pikes in Romanshorn at its own expense, with the goal of the Junior’s promotion.
Witolinsch was in 2005, his Trainer. At all levels. “I think that’s important,” says Witolinsch. “It is often said, You were Yes, professional hockey player, you need to right now professionals or a 1. Team to train. For me, the three years were in the Junior a good lesson: How you’re going to be with different children, juniors, parents? This is the experience I needed.”
Stäheli met him as an extremely organized coach know, as a people with a backbone: “He is not one who says always Yes and Amen. Today, many employees leave their bosses in the desert go by, they never contradict. Harijs was not so. He was able to say, ‘ no, this can’t go on. He was argumentative and strong.”
“He is not one who says always Yes and Amen”
And Stäheli was no one who would have accepted just like that, he wants to have emphasized: “I’m not just as Constantin, but similar. If it didn’t work out with a Trainer, I acted quickly. But Harijs it was different. Once, as we had after six Games, zero points, I’m in the cabin, and I said to the team: all the players are gone before Harijs is gone.”
Witolinsch went first, than the Chance of a Job in the KHL beckoned. He was assistant coach of HK MVD Balashikha, then at Dynamo Moscow, where he also has a year’s head coach, the last two years he was again an assistant at SKA St. Petersburg.
The resident in the Canton of Thurgau Witolinsch, wife and the two daughters kept remained. Now he is definitely back. As the game in Freiburg’s over, he is allowed to analyze a victory. His Team did not falter, but fell, won 3:2. Witolinsch blames the passivity at the beginning, praises that the Team then gave Gas, just as he had hoped. Contradictions there is no, Witolinsch know that The work has only begun.
employees: Philipp Muschg
(Tages-Anzeiger)
Created: 23.12.2018, 08:44 PM
