30 hockey. They were sponsoring more and more hockey clubs, including my own club Amsterdam. Therefore, the EHL was seen as a welcome additional proposition.” The vision “The vision that forms the foundation of the Euro Hockey League, is to provide a chance for club hockey to develop an international profi le”, Hensel maintains. “Up to this point international hockey was only accessible to the roughly twenty-fi ve people who qualify for the national team. In theory, with the EHL, every Rabo Hockey League team has the chance to qualify for an international competition. This is also the case in all other countries. This has been an enormous breakthrough. It was therefore no problem whatsoever to convince the clubs. It was the right moment for the spirit of the times. It had to happen, let me describe it that way.” Hendriks: “Another crucial part of our vision was how we could bring hockey to the world of television. In Europe, hockey used to be fi lmed in the classic manner. By this I mean we had a high camera at the centre-line, a low camera at the centre-line, and if possible, another camera behind the goal. This is how it began with football as well. But at a certain point football started utilising thirty cameras while hockey still made do with two or three. Meanwhile in India they were already using twelve cameras, often at the craziest positions. They fi lmed more closeups. They showed what was really interesting to viewers, namely the stick with the little ball and all the phenomenal things that were done with them. I thought that was a terrifi c improvement. So then Bert fi gured how you could show a game in the best light. Where do you place a camera and what are you going to show? He then also made sure the people responsible for the technology understood what “By developing and offering our own content from the beginning we have made big progress” JONS HENSEL he was after. My ambition was to present hockey in a way that it had never been shown before anywhere in the world. Bert Spaak proved that it was possible.” Media-event Spaak: “First of all I contacted the NOS network but they were not prepared to make any commitments. Then, I went to talk with the SBS network and they showed interest because they were seen as a ‘women’s network’ and they saw the EHL as chance to give them a slightly masculine accent with a sport that still appealed to a female target group. We had a lot of programming time and every game was shown live, but the viewing fi gures were not very high. Hockey is after all predominantly a sport which appeals to viewers who are hockey fans; the general public is only interested when the Netherlands is competing in the World Championships or is playing for an Olympic medal. We certainly knew that and therefore it was not a disappointment or a failure from our perspective. We also knew that it would take time to build a TV Audience for the EHL and NET5 really made an important contribution to these efforts.” Hensel does not consider the withdrawal of NET5 from the broadcasting of the EHL as a miscalculation. “It remains a huge media-event. The NOS has acquired the broadcasting rights, which means we can no longer be seen integrally for four days on television. But in the meantime, we have had fi ve years of experience with the media landscape and more and more people are watching sports on the internet. It is really becoming an exciting development. Last year during the semi-fi nal between Oranje Zwart and HGC there were 40.000 people sitting at the computer and watching in the region of Eindhoven. The entire Sports marketer Bert Spaak is owner of PRO SPORT. The EHL presented him with an award for his work. Jons Hensel is Tournament Director for the EHL, and one of its founding fathers. Maurits Hendriks, former top-hockey coach, is now the Technical Director of the Dutch Olympic federation NOC*NSF. FOTO: NOC*NSF Pagina 29

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