There was another exciting match week in the ERSTE Liga and of course there were some great performances. Fradi defeated UTE and Brasov thanks to Peter Sevela stopping over 98% of the shots he faced. MAC won both their games as well however DVTK stayed ahead of the pack with two wins. The player that played a large part in his team picking up the 6 points was Bálint Magosi who had 4 goals against Csíkszereda and one against Fehérvár and this is why he is this week’s Player of the Week.
Bálint Magos comes from Dunaújváros and grew with a number of bigtime Hungarian players such as Gergő Nagy, Nikandrosz Galanisz, Ákos Kiss, István Mestyán and Tamás Pozsgai just to name a few. He came up through the Dunújváros youth system and made his senior debut with his hometown team. He played for the Hungarian U18 and U20 national teams and made his senior debut during the 2009-10 season and also played in the World Championships and has been a staple of the Hungarian national team ever since. In 2011 he left Dunaújváros to play in the EBEL with Fehérvár. He would move on to Briancon in France for the 2015-16 season and is now in his second season in Miskolc with DVTK. We chatted with Magosi after practice.
You had five goals in two games how come everything went so well for you during these games?
Actually I didn’t do anything special, this is how everything happened, my line mates set me up very well, and this time everything went in, that up until now didn’t.
This is your second season with DVTK and things are going well, what is the environment like around the team with the new coach?
This is all kind of relative, sometimes things are going well, other times not as much. Me and the team are trying to be stable, I think this has been the secret to the success of the team this year that we are playing for the team and the team goals are coming first.
You have already played one national team game with head coach Jarmo Tolvanen, however this will be the first time you will have a usual training camp and four team tournament. How much are you and the rest of teh waiting to get back to work with the national team?
We are ready, we had a great experience last time in the one game as we defeated Poland. Now we will have more time to work together which usually lead to new impulses plus it is always great to have the Hungarian jersey on selfs. We have a great deal of work ahead of us with the new head coach as we would like to perform better at the World Championships on home ice compared to how we played in Ukraine.
You are a veteran experienced player with the national team and the 2017 World Championships was the first time you had a letter on your jersey, what is it like to be in this role in the locker room?
This was a huge honor to have a letter, but I think everyone has an idol that they look up to or want to play well for. This being said everyone knows that their teammates have expectations towards them, regardless if they are a fourth line player who has to block shots or if they are a first line player that is a playmaker. This also needs to be off the ice as well so the team can ride the momentum wave.
You are back in the Hungarian league after playing in the EBEL and in France for a number of years, how much has the league changed since the time you debuted in Dunaújváros?
I played first during the 2006-07 season and we can not compare the league from back then to what we have now. The league is a lot faster and it has become more physical than it used to be. The teams are bringing in better and better imports, just look at Csíkszereda who signed Pytor Schastlivy, it was a real treat to play against him. We were all just looking what kind of player he is. This in general lifts the level of the league, the young players can come up here develope and move on to better leagues. Overall the league has improved tremendously in the past decade.