Holiday

Column ‘Jewels from Jacques’ by Jacques Brinkman for Stick2hockey.com

In my last column I discussed about paying attention to growing grassroot. In addition to the development of congenital talent, the second most important quality that needs to be imbibed in sportsmen is nurturing of an iron mentality. I think it is compromised in our welfare societies.

We are going to Spain for holidays. But after previous holidays toward Thailand and Mexico, we faced some faint but somewhat irksome reaction: Not to a distant destination?’

I hear such spoiled reactions and see them more frequently in my environment. It is also all but normal.
The most footballers, for example the Spanish, flock to Ibiza as a holiday destination. Ibiza is the island of the jet, hippies and discotheques. A visit to Pacha nightclub typically costs 70 euro and for a drink you pay 12 euro.
It is all about image. Nice parade on the beach, just pretend not by the paparazzi’s wish to be photographed… Tattoo here, tattoo there.

Hockey players also deserve a nice sandwich and the holiday destinations that come via the social media are America, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia and South Africa. A week of Zealand, a couple of days at the Dutch coast, there is lot.

Players happiness and recreation are vital, these energize and reinvigorate them. But it also entails a word of caution.

Recreation should not be confused with leisure merry making.

I do not begrudge them for recreation or anything, but in addition to rights there are obligations (read performance).

The new men’s coach Max Caldas has shown that obligations do matters. He was sitting with the hockey women on Papendal and sent them even a few days to a military camp which has no sleeping places and sanitary facilities in order to make them improve resiliency. With an Olympic and world title.

The core of top-level sport has not changed. This applies to hockey players, footballers and actually all athletes. But everything around us, such as commercial interests, the needs of public and the spread of social media make the world really different. We must learn better athletes dealing ways.