Ice Hockey World Championship: Kühnhackl interview: “Of course, storm has what it takes to become NHL coach”

On Friday the Ice Hockey World Championship 2018 starts for the DEB team with the match against host Denmark (8.15 pm at LIVETICKER and LIVE on DAZN). SPOX has invited Germany’s ice hockey legend Erich Kühnhackl to an interview on this occasion.

The 67-year-old praised national coach Marco Sturm in the highest notes and is convinced of a successful world championship. The “wardrobe on runners” also talked about his emotional outburst at the Olympic miracle, nights spent and his son Tom, who is aiming for the third consecutive Stanley Cup victory with the Pittsburgh Penguins this season.

SPOX: Mr. Kühnhackl, how often do you spend your nights watching the games of your son Tom and the Pittsburgh Penguins?

Erich Kühnhackl: First the DEL playoffs with the great finals between Munich and Berlin, some of which I followed with great enthusiasm on site in the hall. Now the World Cup is just around the corner, and then the playoffs in the NHL – these are intense times for an ice hockey maniac like me. Of course I go with my son and don’t miss a game. When a game of German time begins at 9 pm, it is still pleasant. The games on the west coast start at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. It’s not worth going to bed at 7:00 anymore. I’ll get my wife some buns and go through. (laughs)

SPOX: Will you fly back to the USA if the pens reach the Stanley Cup finals (LIVE on DAZN) again?

Kühnhackl: Of course we will fly over if that should happen. We have already been to the USA this season. The Penguins always make a kind of Father’s Day at the beginning of the year. The fathers are invited and travel with the team for two or three games.

SPOX: How do you rate your son’s season and his role in the team?

Kühnhackl: He plays in a top team, which is not so easy. The pressure to perform is enormous. Tom, like every other player in Pittsburgh, is challenged to work very hard in every situation – whether before the game, in the game or after the game. Otherwise you don’t have a chance to play in a team like this. He does that and he has been rewarded for winning the Stanley Cup twice. In my opinion, Tom is doing his part well. He is an integral part of this incredible team, which I think is great and makes me a bit proud.

SPOX: How can you help him with advice?

Kühnhackl: We already talked a lot when he started with ice hockey and went his way across Landshut through the teams of the DEB. He kept asking me for advice. I always told him that he had to make his own experiences. That is the most important point, the father can still tell so much. What I was able to give him was that you always have to act at the maximum in terms of training diligence and attitude. Subordinating everything to this beautiful sport is the basic requirement to be successful. This applies to every league in the world, whether you play in the DEL or the NHL.

SPOX: The NHL is every hockey player’s dream, we don’t have to discuss that. But isn’t it also incredibly bitter for your son and the other NHL cracks like Leon Draisaitl that you couldn’t be there at the biggest moment in the history of German ice hockey, winning the silver medal at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang?

Kühnhackl: That’s a difficult subject. I know that all German players under contract in the NHL would have liked to have been there. That would have been a huge experience for every one of these guys. Just remember the Olympic qualifying tournament in Riga. Everybody was there. Everyone was so proud to play for their country at the Olympics. Things turned out differently, which was not easy for the boys. Nevertheless, one has to say that they are professionals. And if the NHL just decides not to let its players participate in the Olympics, then that applies. A contract is a contract, that is simply part of it and you have to respect that.

SPOX: If we are honest from a German point of view, we have to be happy that the NHL players were not allowed to be in South Korea. Otherwise, silver would have been impossible.

Kühnhackl: Now you have said that and I leave it uncommented. (laughs)

SPOX: The fact that the NHL players were not there does not in any way diminish the basic performance of the DEB team. The team has inspired the whole country for ice hockey. There is a video of you made in the second of your victory over Canada in the semi-finals. You were damn near tears.

Kühnhackl: You know yourself that German ice hockey hasn’t always had an easy time of it. And I’m someone who lives hockey, who owes so much to this sport, who has always been with the national team. And then something like this happens, these great guys make it to the Olympic finals. Against Canada! You have to imagine that! I treated the team so much, I was incredibly pleased – an extremely emotional moment. This success was simply unbelievably valuable for our sport.

SPOX: What exactly do you have in mind?

Kühnhackl: Ice hockey has finally returned to the German public through the Olympics. Arrived in style! I am only thinking of the work of the next generation, which can benefit from this. Sponsors suddenly find ice hockey exciting. There are 1000 possibilities. Such successes are incredibly important for the entire sport.

Page 1: Kühnhackl about his Olympic emotions and his son Tom

Page 2: Kühnhackl on the storm and the upcoming World Cup