It is just after 10pm on August the 27th in Athens. Eleven men raise their arms up high in euphoria, substitutes storm the pitch, tears of joy run down cheeks. What Michael McCann had always dreamt of has just happened. He completed his old coach’s and mentor’s collection of Olympic medals. His old hero had won two Olympic medals back in the sixties. Michael McCann had just won the Olympic Gold Medal with the Australian Nation Hockey team after an incredibly exciting match versus the Netherlands due to the Golden Goal of his team mate and triple World Hockey player Jamie Dwyer.
Sitting there talking, he seems to be a balanced, good-looking, young man, but when it comes to the crunch, he assigns priorities and shows his true colours. And that is the will to win, no matter how! He admits himself that he can become quite furious and even wants to dislike his opponents.
Mike McCann, as he is called by his friends, started to play hockey at the age of four. Not really caring about school, he developed great hockey skills and joined the Australian National Team at an early age. A strike rate of one goal every two matches conveys an impression of his work. Not wanting to let down his team colleagues he stands up his girlfriend. His ambition concerning hockey put an end to his relationship after eleven years.
Today Mike McCann is a full time Hockey coach, a widely travelled men who has lived (and of course played hockey) in Australia, Holland, Spain and Germany, who has seen the most beautiful places in the world and is on terms with himself. The Austrian Birgit has been his new chosen one for two years now and they are even planning to have a family soon. But as well as Mike’s other girlfriends before, Birgit will have to follow him around wherever his job might take him. His contract with the Mannheimer Hockey Club runs another two years, anything further is still uncertain. Talking about Barcelona, his favourite city in the world, he starts dreaming and wishes he could go back there one day. Wonder if Birgit likes Catalonia?
