THERAPEUTIC MAGAZINE
FO RWAR D AND C AP TAIN O F T HE R ED LI O NS
“I always try to be on the top of my game.” – Thomas Briels –
T
homas Briels has been valuable asset on the Red Lions, the Belgian national hockey
team, for several years. The forward and captain of the Red Lions already has some nice trophies to put on display: silver at the Olympics in 2016, gold at the World Cup in 2018 and gold at the European Championship in 2019. In a club context, Briels defends the colours of the Dutch Orange-Red. Thomas: How did you get into hockey ? M y grandmother started playing hockey at Royal Antwerp Hockey and she won the Belgian championship with them. Afterwards, she founded the first women’s team at KHC Dragons. My mother and my uncles also played hockey. So you could say that it is in my blood. At the age of four, I started playing hockey with my brother and sister - we are triplets - at KHC Dragons. I played for all the youth teams there and played in the first team for the first time at the age of 17. I was also selected for the national U18 and U21 teams and at the age of 19 I was in the Red Lions’ selection for the first time. Since then, I have always played for my country with great pride.
Injuries and lesions are of course part of every sport, especially at top level. How do you cope with that ? A fter the training sessions, there is always a physio present who we can turn for minor and major ailments, such as stiffness. I always try to be on the top of my game. If I feel anything at all, I seek professional help as soon as possible. Touch wood, but I have never been very badly injured myself. What I also find very important is injury prevention. There are weeks when we have eight or even more training sessions to digest, and that is of course taxing, but there is also a real risk of injury. So the strength and stretching exercises we do are not just there to make us stronger and more flexible. They are also very important for injury prevention. As we travel across the continent, we also regularly encounter extreme temperatures. Drinking plenty of fluids is the first order of business, but good cooling is also essential. We do this mainly by using cooling vests, primarily when we are sitting on the bench during a match. In this way, we keep our body temperature more or less under control.
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