Our blog about Czech table hockey brings the first international interview with Simon Thomas (GB), the new ITHF President who will take over from Bjarne Axelsen (DEN) after the World Championship 2015 in St. Petersburg. Questions asked by Tibor Varga, the interview translated to Czech by Krystof Herold.
TABLE HOCKEY AND LIFE
Simon, you have been
elected a new ITHF President. Many of our readers and players
worldwide will certainly ask: who is Simon Thomas? According to the
WR you are a British citizen, but we regularly meet you at Czech
tournaments. On top of that, you organize Berlin Open. It seems you
were born to be international...
Yes, for me, nationality
is just a piece of paper. It doesn't mean that much to me. I reckon
if everybody thought that way, the world would be a better place.
How did you
become a member of the Stiga Big Band Club in Prague?
The first Czech Cup
tournament I visited (except for the Czech Open) was in Třinec in
2011. On the train back to Prague afterwards, I met the Big Band guys
and we drank some beers together. From then on, I went drinking with
them after every tournament. After a while, they started trying to
persuade me to join the club. I soon realised that the only way to
stop them forcing me to drink Jägermeisters all the time was to
agree, so I joined!
When did you start
playing table hockey? How did you learn about it?
I came across table
hockey in 2006. My kids had just started kindergarten and my wife had
made friends with one of the other mums there. So we had a weekend
get-together between the two families. The wives were chatting and
the kids were playing together, so I had to find some way to pass the
time with the other dad, whom I didn't know. His name was Thomas
Haussknecht. His brother had just given Thomas's sons a gift: a table
hockey game. It was about half the size of a Stiga game. But it was
great fun. We played that thing for maybe a couple of hours, just the
two of us in the room. Our wives said it was weird that we had been
in that room together for ages without saying anything to each other.
But of course we were communicating the whole time: on the board.
After a while, we started
actually talking as well. It turns out his brother had been to a
couple of Stiga tournaments in Germany and told Thomas how amazingly
good the players were: they could even do "combinations",
passing the puck from one player to the other. Wow! After hearing
about these extreme skill levels, I thought it sounded fun, so we
looked it up on the net, found a local league in Berlin and decided
to check it out.
The worst defeat in
your life?
 |
| The worst defeat ever :-) |
Then one day, my wife said I should take out my old hockey game and show it to our kids, who had since become old enough to play. From that point, it didn't take long until I was keen to get back into it. But I promised myself I wouldn't take it so seriously this time. If it's not fun, it's not worth doing.
So now I try to
approach table hockey with a sense of humour. If you look around at a
tournament, you see us all giving 100% and playing this "children's
game" like our lives' depend on it, which is great, but it's
also quite hilarious if you think about it. On the one hand, it's a
serious sport. On the other hand, it's quite crazy what we table
hockey players spend our time doing. I really like that interesting
dichotomy.
ITHF AND THE INTERNATIONAL TABLE HOCKEY SCENE
When you compare the
international table hockey scene, say, five years back with the
situation as it stands now: what has changed? Which of these changes
would you put on the plus side?
The most obvious
change is the rise of Russia to replace Sweden as the dominant nation
in table hockey. Of course, not everyone is happy about that, but
there are a lot of positives. They are working really hard in Russia
to develop the game. As world ranking administrator, I have to set up
the profiles of all the new players each week, which gives me a good
overview of where the most development is happening, and it's really
clear to me who is doing the most work in this area. I think a lot of
the people who complain about Russian dominance should look at how it
was achieved and try to emulate that in their own countries.
What do you think is
most needed for the international table hockey at the moment? What
can ITHF do about it?
One thing we need to
do is reach out more. We need to help Stiga make the game a truly
worldwide phenomenon. If we don't expand, the inevitable day when
Stiga eventually decides to stop manufacturing the game will come
sooner rather than later.
I think one way to
expand would be to change the way we report on tournaments. If we
want to reach a wider public, we have to present the game in a way
that novices find entertaining. Lots of table hockey videos on
YouTube just show match after match after match. That can be
interesting for expert players to watch, but novices find it boring.
These days, at least here
in Germany, there's a lot of TV programmes about song contests.
They're really popular. They don't just show the songs and say who
wins at the end: that would be boring. Instead, they have interviews,
they show the participants travelling to the contest, they film them
talking about their hopes and dreams. So then when you see them
performing, you know who that person is and it's more entertaining. I
think if we present table hockey this way, we can reach a bigger
audience.
The best film I've
ever seen about table hockey is "Table Hockey: The Movie",
about Canadian players going to play in Sweden. It's fun to watch,
because there's humour, rivalries etc. So then it's no longer about
bits of plastic moving around on a board, it's a personal story.
I want to try
something like that this year at the Berlin Open 2015. Of course, I
want to play as well, so I won't be able to just film. But I am
asking the players to help by filming their journey to the
tournament, conducting interviews, filming their sightseeing
activities etc. Of course, matches should be filmed too. But instead
of showing lots of 5-minute matches, the film should show edited
highlights of the matches, with slow-motion replays so that novices
can see what's happening. Of course, it would be better with a
professional film crew, or even film students. But this is just an
experiment. Maybe it won't work out, but it will be fun trying.
Imagine a
professionally filmed report on the world championships in that
style. If we could convince Stiga to finance it, that would be a
great way to generate more interest in the sport worldwide – for
instance in China. Show the Chinese this game in the right way, and
before you know it, Stiga will be selling thousands and thousands of
games over there.
If there was only one
thing you could change during your time in office, what would it be?
What other issues would you like to deal with?
One thing I would like to
change is the scope of the Tournament Rules. I think it's clear that
those rules were intended only for international tournaments, i.e.
World Tour and international championships. People running their
local leagues should not have to meet all those requirements. And
organisers should be free to try out new playing systems. I would
change it, so the Tournament Rules just apply to international
tournaments and only a few basic requirements apply to the rest. Of
course, the Game Rules would still apply everywhere.
 |
| In Conversation with Peter Ostlund |
Another change would
be more transparency. When the national delegates are voting, it
should be communicated to everyone, not just the delegates. That way,
individual players can follow what is going on and make sure their
delegate knows their opinion. I also think individuals should be
encouraged to contact the executive committee directly on important
issues. Not long ago, Petr Sládek wrote to the committee about an
issue that he felt very strongly about, and he was speaking on behalf
of a group of players, not just for himself. But I was told not to
answer him because he is not a national delegate and the current
policy is to only respond to national delegates. I think the
executive committee should be there for the players and if someone
wants our opinion, they should get it.
BERLIN OPEN 2015
Let us finish in the
very near future: this year's Berlin Open is on in two weeks' time.
How is this tournament different from other world tournaments?
It's sexier!
Apart from the fact
that we're trying to film it this year, we're also using an "inverse
timer". So it's the opposite to the normal situation: music
plays through the whole match, except for the last 30 seconds, which
are silent. There's no countdown at the end, so players
don't know exactly when the match is going to finish, which makes the
final phase more exciting. Of course, for this to work, we have to
ban players from using personal timers.
We're also introducing a
fair-play award. Anyone observing a notable example of fair play
during the tournament can nominate the player involved by describing
the situation to the organisers. At the end, if the organisers decide
that there is a suitable candidate, that player will receive a prize.
Wait until you see how amazing the prize is! (...) Sorry, I had to
pause there for a moment to wipe tears from my eyes, as the prize
really is a thing of immense beauty.
In general, Berlin's
geographical location means we always get an interesting mix of
players. There are usually some Scandinavians from the north, as well
as Czechs and Swiss from the south. This year we also have a group of
Ukrainian players coming. And world champion Atis Silis has even told
me he hopes to be there. He says it's because he wants to combine it
with a visit to a relative in Frankfurt, but I think I know the real
reason: he's won the world championship and is looking for greater
challenges, so he has set his sights on the ultimate contest – the
Berlin Open!
Of course, it is
also well-known that the women of Berlin find Czech men irresistible,
but I hope that doesn't influence any of your readers who are
deciding whether or not to attend.
Thank you - and good luck with both Berlin Open and the ITHF!
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