Gábor Ocskay, Jr. (; 11 September 1975 – 24 March 2009) was a Hungarian

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

player. As the center of the first line, he played a huge part in his national team's promotion to the 2009 World Championship. He died of a heart attack weeks before the start of the 2009 Championships. Ocskay was posthumously awarded the Torriani Award by the

International Ice Hockey Federation The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF; ; ) is a worldwide governing body for ice hockey. It is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and has 84 member countries. The IIHF maintains the IIHF World Ranking based on international ice hockey to ...

(IIHF) in 2016, and was inducted into the

IIHF Hall of Fame The IIHF Hall of Fame is a hall of fame operated by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). It was founded in 1997, and has resided at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto since 1998. Prior to 1997, the IIHF housed exhibits at the Interna ...

Domestic career

Ocskay was born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, but spent his childhood in

Székesfehérvár Székesfehérvár (; ; ; ; Serbian language, Serbian: ''Стони Београд''; ), known colloquially as Fehérvár (), is a city in central Hungary, and the country's ninth-largest city. It is the Regions of Hungary, regional capital of C ...

Fejér county Fejér (, ) is an administrative county in central Hungary. It lies on the west bank of the river Danube and nearly touches the eastern shore of Lake Balaton. It shares borders with the Hungarian counties Veszprém, Komárom-Esztergom County ...

and during his entire career he played for

Alba Volán Székesfehérvár ''Alba'' ( , ) is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is also, in English-language historiography, used to refer to the polity of Picts and Scots united in the ninth century as the Kingdom of Alba, until it developed into the Kingd ...

. Officially he had been a member of the club since 1983 and that time he had started to develop a famed on-ice relationship with right winger Krisztián Palkovics. Among hockey fans in Hungary the pair was just known as "The Twins". Started to play regularly in the Hungarian First Division in the 1993-94 season and won the championship nine times, the last seven being consecutive. After long-time captain, Balázs Kangyal had left the team, he became his successor, but due to some difficulties at the end of the 2008-09

EBEL The ICE Hockey League (International Central European Hockey League, ICEHL), known as the win2day ICE Hockey League for sponsorship reasons, is a Central European hockey league that also serves as the top-tier ice hockey league in Austria. It c ...

regular season, he decided to give up this position. However, he had been the real spiritual leader of the team for a long time.

International play

Ocskay played 187 games for the Hungarian national team and since 1993, including each World Championship appearance. Hungary won the Pool C (now Division II) tournament in 1998 and 2000, the 2008 Division I tournament, and gained promotion to the

Ice Hockey World Championships The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual international men's ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), first officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics. The IIHF was created in 1908 while the I ...

for the first time since 1939.

Death

In 2004, he was diagnosed with a

heart disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is any disease involving the heart or blood vessels. CVDs constitute a class of diseases that includes: coronary artery diseases (e.g. angina pectoris, angina, myocardial infarction, heart attack), heart failure, ...

and sidelined for four months, but later received a medical permission to continue his career. He died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

late on 24 March 2009, aged 33, three days after helping his side win its tenth Hungarian title. After the shocking news of his death, both his club and the Hungarian Federation has decided to retire his famous #19 jersey from their teams. On the day of his funeral, the ice hall of Székesfehérvár has been named after him. Ice hockey fans around the country have started to raise money to build a statue for him in front of the entrance of the ice hall.

Awards

*Hungarian Player of the Year :1994, 1995 and 2006 *Best Scorer of the Hungarian First Division :1994-95, 1997-98, 1998-99 *Best Forward of the Hungarian First Division :1993-94, 2006-07 * Torriani Award and the

: 2016

References

External links