Ice Hockey: Lorenz Funk deceased at the age of 70 years

German ice hockey mourns the loss of one of its biggest players.Lorenz “Lenz” Radio Senior is dead.He died in the night of Friday at the age of 70 years of a long cancer.

Lorenz Funk, always called Lorenz Lenz, was a tree from a guy.A real male image, as they say in Bavaria.But even he was powerless against the cancer.Lenz “Funk died on Friday night at the age of 70.He was one of the biggest hockey players Germany ever had.

“The news makes us deeply sad, very sad and thoughtful,”said DEB President Franz Reindl, who was still standing on the ice together with Funk.Also in February 1976 at the Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck, when the German Ice Hockey Federation sensationally won the bronze medal.Funk was one of the heads of this team with Erich Kühnhackl and captain Alois Schloder around coach Xaver Nonsense.

In February last year, the players reunited again – the radio station marked by his illness was also used for the performance of a BR documentary on the 40th anniversary of the death of the German football team.Anniversary of the Olympic coup at.It had the character of a class reunion – and Lenz was the emotional centre of attention:”That’s what Reindl said about the encounter with his long-time companion.

Funk never gave up his hardest fight, remained optimistic after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2015, did not retreat, spoke so openly about his suffering, as he usually did about his passion for ice hockey, and also gained strength from his great hobby, the breeding of carrier pigeons.

“It’s funny when I’ve never been sick,”Funk told the newspaper Die Welt not long after his diagnosis:”Once a flu has come along, a liquor, a grog, then I was healthy again.” But the cancer didn’t get rid of radio.

Funk was an institution in German ice hockey, wore the jersey of the DEB-selection 225 times, took part in 13 world championships as well as in three Olympic Games.He celebrated three German championship titles in total, the first 1966 with his Bad Tölzern, the others with the Berlin SC in 1974 and 1976.

After his career as a player, Funk worked as manager for the Eisbären Berlin, which owe his rise to the team,”He was probably the person who did the most for our sport in our city.We will all miss him very much,”said polar bear manager Peter John Lee.

Until his last breath, the DEB wrote, Funk had embodied and lived ice hockey despite his serious illness.Lenz was one of the greatest hockey players of all time and an outstanding sports personality,”said Reindl.

Born in Tölzer leaves his wife Marlene and his sons Lorenz junior and Florian, who also played professional ice hockey.