Sunday, September 6, 2020

HC Luxembourg - Taxandria : 1-1

The season is finally starting ! After a promising summer preparation, the team is fully motivated for this first league match! Needed motivation for this opening match, which has been a difficult draw for us. Indeed, the Taxandria team is certainly one of the strongest in the league.

Luxembourg starts the match with a compact and cautious strategy, leaving the possession of the ball to the opponent and waiting patiently for an opening to counter-attack. This opportunity was not long in coming as, after only a few minutes, our new Spanish recruit "Koké Zidane" perfectly puts the ball deep for Milan Dans who takes a powerful shot that unfortunately dies on the left post of the opponent's goal!

These few centimetres too short penalize us doubly because Taxandria opens the score on the following action, not without a serious stroke of luck. Indeed, the opposing attacker misses his shot and the unexpected trajectory of the ball deceives our goalkeeper by taking it on the wrong foot (0-1).

In spite of this blow of fate, Luxembourg went back into action and took the game into their own hands as the minutes went by. Courageous, united and with a positive fighting spirit, the Grand Duchy's players deliver an exemplary match. The team, united, will be rewarded for its efforts ten minutes from time. Milan Dans, in great shape this Sunday, is wrongfully arrested in the opposing circle. The referee's decision is clear: stroke! Our captain Laurent Nève takes responsibility and transforms it into a powerful flick at half height (1-1).

The last moments of the match will be tense and indecisive, but neither team will manage to find the breakthrough. The draw is logical, given the configuration of the match. This is a wonderful and encouraging result for our club for the rest of the season! We can say that Luxembourg has found a team that looks good and will fight every Sunday to win!

The group will travel to Tournai this Sunday to hopefully take their first victory and take the podium of a league that promises to be exciting until the end!

Maxime Halflants

Hockey Federation Luxembourg (HFL) has been selected by the  European Hockey Federation (EHF) to be part of its Twinning Program. This program consists of two years of collaboration and learning between a young hockey federation and an experienced hockey club. This year Netherlands Hockey Federation (KNHB) is the major contributor to the EHF initiative. Dutch clubs have been selected to collaborate with European hockey federations.

We are pleased to announce HFL is twinning with the Dutch club HV Weert. HV Weert is located in the south east of the Netherlands, in the province of Limburg. University students founded the club in 1938. The club now counts 730 members and proposes competitive and leisure hockey. HV Weert has more than 50 teams, amongst youth, adults and veterans groups. They play on a regional as well as on a top national level.

The Twinning Program and collaboration with HV Weert will be a major step forward for HFL and will help us reach a higher level of hockey in Luxembourg at all levels, supporting the promotion, development and growth of our sport. HFL will strive to better its organization by learning from the expertise and experience of our partner, HV Weert.

The program consists in exchange visits in the Netherlands and in Luxembourg to share ideas and experience the organization and day-to-day life of the partner in real life. More frequent video conferencing will be organized as well as direct communication.

Following a first meeting between HV Weert and HFL representatives, a program will be worked out around three key areas for our organization:

• Sport policy and coaching strategy;
• Youth development plan, volunteer enrollment and membership growth;
• Social life and club culture.

During the course of the program we will also work on common tournaments for youth and adults, technical clinics, trainer collaboration and umpiring.

The willingness to extend the two years Twinning Program collaboration to a friendly and long-term relationship between HV Weert and HFL has been commonly expressed by both parties.

The HFL team leading the project is headed by Ignacio Gomez-Acebo, sports director, together with Jimena Perez, social life coordinator, and Ivan Bouillot, youth coordinator.

HV Weert team is composed of Manon Eijsvogel, coach, trainer and project manager, Natasja Princen, Board member and team manager, and René Eijsvogel, coach and trainer.

We thank the EHF, KNHB and HV Weert for supporting HFL. We are looking forward to work and develop strong relationships with HV Weert.

The last few days we have had good news in many ways: deconfinement is finally happen and as you read last week (some) sports are now on the 'allowed' list. Of course all of you must be very anxious to see when we will get back to play hockey. To be quite honest, it is unfortunately not so simple. The VDL has still not full opened up the facilities, but even more importantly the precautions, measures that have to be taken during the trainings are quite challenging. So, we are looking into everything and we will let you know next week, probably only by Thursday, what we will decide to do… But we will do everything to get ut playing again! That I can assure you!

See you soon and best hockey greetings,

Francis

Enjoy our players toilet paper challenge :

https://www.facebook.com/hockeyclubluxembourg/videos/vb.1485859698369482/691973074949209/?type=2&theater

We are happy to announce the Twinning Programme between Hockey Federation Luxembourg and Dutch Club of Weert.
"We are looking forward to a wonderful exchange of knowledge, experience and passion which will bring Hockey to the next level"

https://eurohockey.org/2020/03/27/ehf-knhb-twinning-program/

Dear Hockey Lovers,

For those who are following the government's press conference on COVID-19 and the de-confinement, you will have heard the hopeful news that outdoor sports will be allowed again, obviously in a reduced format.

We will update you as soon as it is clear what this will mean for the trainings and any other activities around our club and federation. The current advice from the VDL is that the facilities remain closed until further notice, but that may change based on the new information.

Dear Hockey Lovers and Friends,

I hope that you and your loved ones are all safe and sound. At the club it appears most of us are doing fine, or at least as well as is possible in these difficult circumstances. Most are at home, and some like Nacho decided to go back to Spain. It is also at times like this that you see the solidarity and team spirit come much more to the forefront, and I certainly wish to thank everybody for the encouraging messages that have been sent to the managers, coaches, teams, members. It is fantastic that even at times like this, we keep the spirit high despite the lack of trainings, matches and any social activities.

COVID/19 is everywhere, and it has impacted all our lives. It has affected our day-to-day and possibly our future in ways that we could never have imagined, and so it definitely also has hockey. The special circumstances have moved boundaries. Hockey is no longer just the game we play on the field, at the club. It has now more than ever become a part of our lives at home, in the garden, in the park, at the fitness, and anywhere else.

Hockey is after all a real team sport and in a period like this it is a very good test to see how strong this group is and it is more than encouraging to see how from all sides ideas come forward to either train at home, do the theoretical courses, and even funny videos! My children for example organise House Party calls with their teammates and friends. HCL and the team spirit has never been stronger than in this very isolated period.

In the past weeks it has been difficult to determine what will happen in the next months, and even what the next season will look like. For now the Belgian League as well as the EHF and IHF have cancelled all the competitions for this season. The next season is still scheduled as originally planned ; kick off mid-September. As for the trainings we follow the governmental advice which is that all sports’ facilities in Luxembourg are closed until July 31. This means no group trainings, no Family Day, no hockey camps and we subsequently also cancelled this years Luxury Tour (July 11).

We are nevertheless already in full mode to give 2020-2021 the best start possible. Hence, if the circumstances will allow and considering we will be limited for our travel, we will start with as many activities as possible in August. We will plan at least 2 weeks of Camps, of which at least 1 week that will be for free for our members. We will continue to post training videos, and in the coming weeks we will share more technical and theoretical trainings which can all be done online. Especially the indoor and outdoor rules course is a must, considering it is compulsory to pass as of U14 and above.

On behalf of the HCL Committee I would like to thank everybody once again for your un-limited spirit and support to keep Hockey our beloved sport and to make us stronger than ever before. We all live those challenging times, but as all of us, you make the best of it, and that is no different for HCL.

We will provide you with a next update in May, and I certainly hope that we will then be able to share more precise information. For now, I wish everybody all the best of luck. Stay safe! Keep moving! Keep playing hockey.

Sportive Hockey Greetings,

Yours,
Francis

HCL President