She realizes that she has shocked a lot of people, many hockey fans, but it is a well-considered choice of Lidewij Welten to switch from leader Den Bosch to middle-ranking Kampong. “It must be crazy, the first time in a different dressing room.”
Lidewij Welten has stirred things up with her decision to leave HC Den Bosch after seventeen years. To the outside world, then, because the top player of the yellow-blacks and the Dutch national team did not hesitate for a moment once she had made the decision. She announced her decision Friday evening.
“After I told my team and other people, it dawned on me that it’s all exciting but also quite crazy what I’ve been told. Then there was no turning back either,” Welten said on Sunday in the Zuidtribune, the sports program on Omroep Brabant Radio.
“I just want to become a better version of myself,” explained the native from Eindhoven. “I was in a bit of a cruise control mode. I’m ready to play a final every week. At Den Bosch, that is actually only the case in the play-offs.”
But why then Kampong, a club in Utrecht? Tilburg or Oranje Rood would also have been possible, or a club abroad, as her former teammate Maartje Paumen did years ago. “Initially I really didn’t know what I was going to play for, although I really wanted to continue playing in the main division. But which club, which team, I only started to think about that after my decision had been made known. After that it went very quickly and I got a phone call from Kampong. A very nice club, with a large following. I’m also a club person, so I immediately had a good feeling about it. I hope to make it to the play-offs with Kampong next season and otherwise the season after.”
“But”, she emphasizes, “the focus will be on Den Bosch for the rest of the season. I want to end this season in a fantastic way by winning two more golds.” Welten is referring to the national championship and the European Cup. If Den Bosch again takes the national title, Weltens would be thirteenth. “And a very special one,” she adds. It turned out later this Sunday afternoon that she is still serious. Due to a goal from Welten, Den Bosch won 4-0 against Bloemendaal. Meanwhile, Kampong got no further than 2-2 at Hurley.
After this season, Welten will focus completely on the new adventure, on Kampong, and that on her 31st. It will take some getting used to. If, when Den Bosch comes to visit, she doesn’t look for the wrong dressing room. It won’t go that fast, “but for the time being it will remain very crazy and at the same time very fun”, says Welten.
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