Moscow - When Eduard Lewandowski was 15, his family moved from Russia to Germany.
It was a long-cherished desire of the German-born Lewandowskis come from Krasnoturinsk in the Urals in their real homeland. She then moved to Wilhelmshaven, where the young Edward opened the door, to become a hockey star.
And what the sport so bestowed: is 13 years later, "Edi", with his family back in Russia, plays for Spartak Moscow) in the new Russian Super League, "KHL (Kontinental Hockey League. In Germany, he had previously matured over the stations Wilhelmshaven, Eisbären Berlin, Cologne and Mannheim to the international shark.
Lewandowski is still emotionally connected to his former club in Cologne. Learn more about this in the info box!
"It's funny," muses "torpedo Edi", as he was baptized in Cologne because of its tremendous speed, "now I'm back in my old home. I also feel quite comfortable in Moscow, if I do not want to live here permanently. My home is in Germany. "
But where I really? "My family and my wife live in Wilhelmshaven and Bremerhaven, where we are staying in the summer," says Eduard Lewandowski than we in the Café "Schokoladniza" in Moscow's Sokolniki district (where is his club Spartak hit). But he still has a great affinity of Cologne. Edi: "Of all the stations where I was before, I liked the best Cologne. A great city in which I also like very much the carnival. When the sharks, I had my best time as a player, it has the most fun. "
A flip of the fence post for the sharks. For after the expiry of his two-year contract Lewandowski insists on return to Germany. "Just because of the children. My daughter Alesia then six years old and is enrolled. That should happen in any case in Germany, "said Edi.
Why is he even landed in Russia, where Edi was drafted but even in his time at Cologne (2002 to 2006) from the Phoenix Coyotes NHL club? "Why? About the money, "Lewandowski said bluntly," In the KHL can earn much more than in Germany. I got an offer from Spartak - because everything fit. "
Siberia - as ex-Hai Ivan Čiernik (Novosibirsk) would be - Lewandowski never left. "You have to travel thousands of miles for every game, will experience up to seven hours time difference. Moscow has the advantage that many clubs are in town and nearby, you need not travel so much. Siberia, the games are for us stop only once per season. "
His family - wife Erika and the children Alesja (3) and David (1) - see Edward still not as often as he would like. "We train three times as much as in Germany," he says, grinning mischievously: "Since my hourly rate is really not so high ..."
For training, he rides the subway (metro), his three-room apartment in an apartment block (16. floor, 2,100 euro monthly rent) is only one metro station away from the training ground in Sokolniki. A car has Lewandowski not in Moscow. "It's no use. You're standing here just in traffic, "he says.
Then Edi talks about the new Super League, "KHL". "The level is very high here. The Russians are all technically imperiously and running very well and the gameplay is different. The puck is played into the attacking third and not threshed as in the DEL. "For Lewandowski is the KHL - regardless of all that money - a new sporting challenge. Zugutekommt him with his Russian past. "From Germany would not enforce a lot of players here. Russians already have a different mentality, "white" torpedo Edi.
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