WHEELCHAIR HOCKEY

When I played some kind of hockey with some friends at school - just out of boredom as we couldn’t participate in school sports - I hadn’t got the faintest idea that this might develop into a really great sport. We were just having fun. We learned to play, control our power wheelchairs better and better , learned to fully concentrate on one thing and develop a team spirit that helped us achieve unprecedented success in later years.


I , for my person, realized that severely physically disabled people can go in for a team sport where each player plays an important role. I met many new people, went with the team all over Germany and later even abroad. I put all my efforts into hockey, I was really good and my self-confidence experienced a tremendous boost.

When I retired from active play in 2003 due to my bad state of health I received from DRS (German Wheelchair Sports) a very nice ‘laudatio’ , which I would like to show here. As I feel fit again due to the new respiration device I am again active in that field occasionally, on the bench so-to-speak. I am so happy that our club found a worthy successor for my place in the goal! I am always very pleased when I see young players enjoying themselves as much as we did at the time. And when I observe how these young people really blossom from one training to the next, I am very glad that we have founded the Munich Animals many years ago.

Anybody who wants to know more about this sport, the matches and the team will find his/her way via the link to the Munich Animals.

Eulogy

for Ferdinand Schiessl on the occasion of the 2002 honour award presentation for sport by the German Wheelchair Sport Asscociation on the 12th July 2003.

When some residents of the Pfennigparade Foundation started playing electric wheelchair hockey in the mid-70s, with makeshift bats and tennis balls much too heavy , nobody would ever have imagined that one of the most successful power- wheelchair hockey teams would emerge in our country.

Ferdinand Schiessl was one of the first to start regular training together with Stefan Pippich, Ossi Utz, Wolfgang Kremer and Wassi Kirtopoulos in the gym of the Pfennigparade home.

No one else has invested so much energy, creativity, courage and innovation in the electric wheelchair sport as has Ferdinand Schiessl in the course of his life. His personal charisma and his seemingly inexhaustible dedication have made our sport become downright popular.

Ferdinand Schiessl has always been the central force and motivator for disabled people whose only opportunity to engage in sport and to achieve significant results was to be a member of our hockey team . However, not only for disabled sportsmen but also for everybody else who has been involved and has worked with the team , Ferdinand has always been a great role model and could win and inspire many. Our sport has not only spread on a national but also on an international level, and thanks to Ferdinand’s charisma has become more and more popular.

No other goalkeeper was able to lead his team to so many victories as he did and in addition to being German champions he had a record of many sportive achievements.

Ferdinand has often worked to the point of exhaustion for the electric wheelchair sport and contributed many hours of volunteer commitment to its creation, structuring and organization.

Eventually, in 2002 he retired from active participation . Ferdinand, however, remains a member in the board of the Munich Animals and is prepared to use his extensive depth of knowledge to promote and further this type of sport.

I think it is time to honor a man for his life's work, who has spared no effort to create and establish a nationally recognized wheelchair hockey team from a handful of amateurish sport-enthusiastic severely disabled people.