Uli Egen hardly shows his age. When the strong man with the shining eyes begins to talk, there is no stopping him. “I’m sure I’ll have a lot of fun as a coach in Belgium,” he says. “But that’s not my hobby there, it’s a full-time job. After all, I don’t dream of white sausage.”
Egen’s famous Weßwurst saying, always a pleasure. He used to try that often when he was still on the road in the German Ice Hockey League (DEL). meaning is not questioned. His still light Allgäu tongue reveals the origin of the now 66-year-old Füssener.
The former national ice hockey player and former coach of the Eisbären Berlin is rarely in his beautiful homeland. Now in his third year, he lives not far from Sittard in the Dutch province of Limburg.
In the Netherlands he has, so to speak, his retirement home from work, because for Egen it takes place in Liège. He commutes the 35-minute drive to the Belgian city almost every day, where he has been in charge of the Bulldogs de Liège for three seasons now. The club plays in the top division, four Belgian and four Dutch teams belong to the BeNe-Liga.
And for Uli Egen, the commitment is not just folklore, but success-oriented. At the end of the season just ended, there were more trophies than a strong lad like Egen Uli can carry. He won four titles with the club from Liège, and no one will be able to do that for him: the Belgian championship, the title in the BeNe, the cup and the ICE Cup, an international cup competition in which a German team, Dinslaken, also took part attended.
The titles are all deserved, says Uli Egen
The success trainer finds it easy to analyze for success, the titles are all deserved. “We only lost five games this season, we were in really good shape system-wise.”
The level of the league is clocked in by Egen at the middle German Oberliga level. Ice hockey isn’t really a big deal in Belgium, but more is now being placed on youngsters. Egen’s team includes an American goalkeeper and a Slovakian defender as professionals, otherwise there are only Belgian players at the start. “They work part-time or study.” And they have a busy schedule, because they train from Tuesday to Thursday and there are often double-match days at the weekend.
Egen still rates the enthusiasm for ice hockey in Liège as decent, with 2,500 spectators watching the cup match against Heerenveen. Otherwise, around 1,500 fans come to the home games, which means that all the seats in the Patinore de Liège, the small hall, would already be full.
The development in the DEL is absurd.
Uli Egen
The arena is located in a shopping center and he drinks his coffee there every day before training, says Egen. As a commuter, he is always there a little too early. And when he’s sitting in the café, doesn’t he sometimes think about home and a possible engagement there? Egen was most recently employed in Germany by Oberliga club Preussen Berlin, a team that no longer exists, and then by Füchsen Duisburg. “There’s no way I want to go back to Germany,” says Uli Egen. “The development of the DEL is absurd.”
The clubs would rely too much on foreign players, even though there were so many good German players. It is adventurous that Germany now has half a dozen top stars in the National Hockey League (NH) and a strong national team and yet far too many North Americans are still employed in the DEL. “I wouldn’t want to do that to myself today,” says Egen.
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