As you all know I am studying English at the PH Heidel-
berg. What you definitely do not know is that on Tuesday we had a very special visitor: Lisa, a fellow student invited her hockey trainer whom she got to know while she spent a year in Australia. Now he is Lisa’s hockey coach in Mannheim and she asked him if he wanted to come so that we might interview him. Of course he accepted (I wouldn’t be writing this entry if he hadn’t) and so the group that I was in asked him several questions about his professional career. You may have heard of him. His name is Mike McCann and he played in the Australia national field hockey team. I really liked what he told us – so here are the most interesting things we found out concerning his life as a professional sportsman.
When he was about thirteen years old, he began to play hockey and after nine years of working in a hotel he started playing for the national team. Later on he told us that there were different things that motivated him to play. Maybe the most important person apart from his parents who always supported him was his coach. He always influenced Mike and wanted him to ‘finish his collection’ of medals. So that’s what he did when his team won the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. According to the now thirty-two- year- old Aussie this was his biggest success and also his most emotional moment during the time as a hockey player. Mike also talked about his way of playing hockey. For example he described himself as “very aggressive and angry” when playing and also confessed that he used to dislike the players of the oppsoing team. And that just because he wanted to win! Furthermore he mentioned that he always was a really straight and direct person - especially on the field (I hope you do not get a wrong impression! Indeed he was a very pleasant guy)! And while he was telling us the story about a team mate who got injured on his head and got sixty-four stiches in order to get the wound closed again I realised how dangerous this sport can be. But “rugby is more brutal” he promised!
In 2000 he began to train as an assistant coach while he was playing in the national team. As a consequence for him this meant that there was no real private life anymore and no time to do any other things (he used to play tennis or golf in his spare time). But he always enjoyed playing hockey! Nevertheless, in 2007 he retired from international hockey and joined the team in Barcelona for one year. Two years ago he moved to Mannheim where he is now a full-time hockey coach training the Mannheim hockey team three times a week. His contract will expire in two years but no matter if he can stay in Mannheim or move to another city, he always will be into hockey because “that’s his thing”.
