The new season of the German Ice Hockey League (DEL) was not even 56 minutes old when there was already the first typical Don Jackson moment. 4:14 minutes were still on the game clock on Thursday when the coach of EHC Red Bull Munich ordered his goalkeeper Mathias Niederberger off the ice in favor of an additional field player. His plan didn’t work out, Munich conceded a goal into the orphaned goal and surprisingly lost the DEL opening game at the Kölner Haie 3:6.
Don Jackson and the goalkeeper being taken off the ice early – this story began in the DEL in the 2005/06 season. At that time it was his team from Düsseldorf who were 3-1 down against arch-rival Cologne in the semi-finals, and their season would have been over if they had lost. Eight minutes before the end, he got the goalkeeper off the ice – and with three goals within 180 seconds, DEG made it into the playoff final. The jubilation that followed in the legendary stadium on Brehmstrasse “was the biggest I’ve ever experienced – and I’ve experienced a lot,” remembers Frieder Feldmann, then and now Düsseldorf’s press spokesman. DEG manager Lance Nethery attested Jackson “big balls” after this action.
Sensitive whisperer: Jackson with a three-day beard in the 2005/06 season as coach of the Düsseldorf Metro Stars.
(Photo: Image)
In 2005, Don Jackson started his career as head coach in the DEL. In the year that Angela Merkel became Chancellor and Joseph Ratzinger became Pope. 17 years later he’s still at it. And this Sunday he is adding another to his numerous records, the most impressive of which are certainly the eight championship titles he has won: the home game against Adler Mannheim (3.15 p.m.) is his 1000th as a DEL coach.
You could see Jackson had to force himself to say anything about his anniversary at all
Finding out from Jackson what he thinks of this imposing figure is almost as difficult as reaching it. The American doesn’t like to talk about himself, not even on such special occasions. It was difficult for him to look ahead to the next game, he said earlier this week as game number 999 in Cologne approached. To comment on such things would be at odds with his “game-to-game” philosophy. The many years as a coach had given him “great fun”, he was grateful to have been given the opportunity again and again – he couldn’t elicit much more. You could see how he had to force himself to say anything at all.
But his companions like to talk about the 66-year-old from Minnesota. No matter who you ask around, the terms calm, prudence and respect are almost always used. Jackson is a “super gentleman,” summarizes league boss Gernot Tripcke.
“Quite a lot” says a laughing Florian Busch when he hears about Jackson’s 1000 mark. The Miesbacher knows Jackson particularly well. For six years he played under the head coach for the Eisbären Berlin, who won five championship titles at the time. Jackson radiated “brutal calm” and had everything under control, he says. “You’ve always had self-confidence under Don.” Even more than the trainer, the person Don Jackson convinced many. He always gave you a good feeling, says Deron Quint, who became champion with Berlin and Munich under Jackson. “He takes you seriously as a person, not just as a professional.”
Jackson, says Klaus Kathan, never used sporting tricks, “he just makes it more emotional”
Klaus Kathan, one of the Düsseldorf captains in Jackson’s first season as DEL head coach, “wouldn’t know anything negative at all” about the jubilarian. Jackson “never seemed like a coach” to the multiple Olympic and World Cup participant from Bad Tölz, more like a colleague because of his humanity and calm. That’s why Kathan still smiles every time he sees Jackson on TV. He never used sporting tricks, “he just makes it more emotional”. That is the secret of his success.
Nevertheless, Jackson always maintains a certain aloofness. His Berlin captain André Rankel once said about him that nobody could look inside Don Jackson’s head. Florian Busch thinks that Rankel is not entirely wrong. Jackson is “opaque”, you never really know what he thinks. But Busch never found that negative, he likes it when people “don’t open their mouths straight away”.
Of course, Jackson, who often seems stoic, can also get loud. Both Busch and Felix Petermann, Jackson’s captain when he moved from Berlin to Munich in 2014, talk about outbursts during the third break, when the garbage can flew through the cabin or “the tape got stuck on the ceiling”.
Capo on the Berlin construction site: Don Jackson in the 2007/08 season in front of the shell of Berlin’s O2 World. The time with the Eisbären Berlin was his most successful as a coach so far.
(Photo: Image)
“You know that there’s a volcano trembling inside him,” says DEL boss Tripcke. It broke out not only in 1995, when Jackson climbed over the plexiglass behind his bench and attacked the opponent’s mascot during his North American times – a scene that is brought up again and again. Also three years ago in the Champions Hockey League in Ambri-Piotta, where microphones made his violent tirade of abuse towards the referee public. “One or two freaks out” is simply a part of so many games, Tripcke thinks, especially since Jackson is the one who picks up the phone and apologizes afterwards.
And there is something else that impresses Petermann about Jackson: the “foresight” of his decisions. “He was already thinking about the playoffs in August.” It cannot be ruled out that he will also do this during the 1000th game.
