What he definitely won't be missing is the follow-up to past games and preparations for the next opponent.

On the laptop.

As quickly as possible.

With ever new analysis tools.

And prepared in such a way that every player takes something with them.

Jens George says: "I can do it. But it takes longer than someone half my age."

The coach, whom everyone in the hockey scene just calls "mouse", is 53 years old.

He had to get to grips with the analysis work, and in a conversation on the beautiful terrace of the club bistro at the Alster Club, you can tell that he would have preferred to spend this time more sensibly than on the computer - and that he could have played to his strengths better , namely to hold a team together, to convey team spirit, to use one's experience.

The cabin in the handle

George was always a coach who controlled the dressing room.

And that has been the case since he started as a women's coach at the Club an der Alster in 1999.

The career of the Alster veteran ended on Pentecost Saturday after 23 years – and very unhappily.

His team lost in the semifinals of the German championship in Bonn 5:6 after a penalty shoot-out against Düsseldorfer HC.

In regular time, George's side turned a 2-0 deficit into a 2-2 draw but, despite two penalty corners just before the end, were unable to take on the defending champions.

"I leave without grudges"

So nothing came of the third field title after 2018 and 2019. He became German champion seven times with the fine club from the Rotherbaum district (five times indoors), won the cup once and the European Cup three times.

"It wasn't important to me.

I would have treated the girls," says George, adding: "I'm going without a grudge."

After the summer break, he will join Alster's youth department and try to "pull a lot of children and young people up into the high-performing teams".

However, in his own way. Without excessive pressure and strictness, with a view to the needs of the children and young people in the corset of all-day school.

He says: "You don't have to train for two and a half hours three times a week, even if that's what ambitious parents might want." can.

Can I train them?” He will only follow the work of his successor Stan Huijsmans as an interested spectator: “It's good that I'm completely out of it.

I will definitely not be the off-screen voice.”

"Much Greater Compulsion"

It's not like he's indifferent to the advancement of hockey.

But at some point he noticed that the language of the players was different.

was no longer his.

More technical jargon, where the old terms would have been good.

"Two or three years ago I felt that the team needed a new impetus, a change," he says.

The doubts began in 2020 when Alster was unable to defend the title.

The constellation with today's women's national coach Valentin Altenburg, who started as George's assistant, made him ponder.

It crunched between the two.

Because the communication Altenburg used with the players and the tactics he wanted to play had little to do with George's understanding of hockey.

And maybe it really doesn't fit into the time when a free spirit like him still works as a carpenter in the morning and trains demanding national team players in the afternoon.

He says: "The biggest difference to my beginnings is that today there is a lot more seriousness and a lot more compulsion." Fun and freedom fell by the wayside.

Always exotic

He cannot say that the sport of hockey has developed at least impressively in the past 23 years.

Neither at club nor at association level.

He felt that placing the women's final on Sunday evening after the game for third place in the men's team was a blow to equality.

In any case, Jens George does not see greater visibility in the media.

“Or are there a lot more spectators at the games than before?” he asks rhetorically.

The top coach always remained exotic.

He traveled the world as a backpacker (98 countries!), regularly dived into exotic, especially poor regions in the summer, stayed true to his job as a carpenter and civil engineer and, from a purely visual point of view, didn't fit into Hamburg's snazzy hockey scene at all.

On the other hand, he owed Alster a regular income – even if he often just shook his head at the sight of the swanky cars in the parking lot.

"It was a tough inner tightrope walk," says Jens George, "but I've always tried to stay with myself."

Now, at the end of July, he will travel with his future wife Sandra Milena to their native country of Colombia and marry her there;

a subsequent tour of the Amazon included, of course.

He does not want to rule out that he will eventually return to the women after a certain time in the new job with the Alster juniors: "Maybe I'll find a young, up-and-coming team from the second or third division." Maybe there wouldn't be a great one video analysis will be required.

His rich experience as a coach and as a person should suffice.