Steve Walker

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CanadaCanada  Steve Walker Ice hockey player
Date of birth January 12, 1973
place of birth Collingwood , Ontario , Canada
size 183 cm
Weight 86 kg
position striker
number # 27
Shot hand Left
Career stations
1990-1992 Owen Sound Platers
1993-1994 Wheeling Thunderbirds
1994-1996 Muskegon Fury
1996 Flint Generals
Rochester Americans
1996-2000 Detroit Vipers
2000-2011 Polar bears Berlin

Steve Walker (born January 12, 1973 in Collingwood , Ontario ) is a Canadian ice hockey coach . As a player, he was active for the Eisbären Berlin from the German Ice Hockey League from 2000 to 2011 . From 2015 to 2017 he was assistant trainer at the Adler Mannheim . In the 2017/18 season he was head coach at EC KAC in Austria. He has been Don Jackson's assistant coach at EHC Red Bull Munich since the 2019/20 season .

Career

As a player

In 1990, Steve Walker joined the Owen Sound Platers playing in the Canadian Junior League Ontario Hockey League as a junior . In his first season he came on 16 missions, scoring one goal and five assists . In the summer of 1993 he moved to the Wheeling Thunderbirds in the East Coast Hockey League . However, he stayed there for only a year and played nine games in which the left shooter scored a goal. He then joined the Muskegon Fury from the Colonial Hockey League for the 1994/95 season and made the breakthrough there. He was one of the best scorers in the league, scoring 168 points in the two years he was under contract at Muskegon .

Then he laced the skates for the league competitor Flint Generals , where he repeated his performances. This was followed by an offer from the Rochester Americans from the American Hockey League , which he also accepted, but left the team after only three AHL games.

He left the Americans and went to Detroit, where he was henceforth active for the Detroit Vipers in the International Hockey League . With the Vipers, Walker found his way back to his old level of performance and won the Turner Cup , the championship of the IHL , with the team in the 1996/97 season . The Canadian stayed with the Vipers for another three years and was one of the team's top strikers during this time.

After he had little chance of a move to the National Hockey League or the lower class American Hockey League, he forced a move to Europe in the summer of 2000. Finally, those responsible for the Eisbären Berlin transferred him to the German Ice Hockey League . With the Berliners, who were on the verge of financial collapse at the time and placed in the lower third of the table, he managed to rise to a serious player in German ice hockey over the next few years.

While he still missed the playoffs with the polar bears in his premier season, he reached the quarter-finals with them in the 2001/02 season , which was lost to the eventual runner-up Adler Mannheim . After participating in the semi-finals in 2003 and losing in the final in 2004, he won the first German championship of his career with the capital city club in the 2005 playoffs . With his six goals in a total of twelve playoff games, Walker played a major role in this success.

Walker in the jersey of the polar bears

On February 6, 2005, the fans and journalists nominated him as an award for his good performance for the DEL All-Star Game , which took place in the Hamburg Color Line Arena . Walker scored two goals. Two more nominations followed in 2008 and 2009. As a favorite in the following season , he was able to defend the title with the polar bears. In the finals, the DEG Metro Stars , like the Adler Mannheim in the previous year , were swept .

The left-shot was now one of the club's most important foreign strikers and a crowd favorite. During the summer break of 2006, he was also appointed team captain by his then coach Pierre Pagé . The 2006/07 season was less successful for the polar bears with missing the finals. The best season of his career was the subsequent 2007/08 season . After a second place after the main round and the associated direct qualification for the playoffs, he barely missed winning the scorer statistics of the regular season with 85 points. Only the German-Czech Robert Hock scored two points more than the Berlin captain.

At the end of the playoffs, he moved with his club for the third time in four years in the final of the German championship. There the polar bears won the third all-German championship in the club's history with three wins and one defeat. He also received the Most Valuable Player award , which honors the most valuable player in the playoffs. In addition, there was victory in the final of the German Ice Hockey Cup .

In 2009 he defended the German championship title for the second time after 2005 and 2006. Walker was also active this season with the polar bears in the newly founded Champions Hockey League and won three of the four games with his team. Nevertheless, the polar bears eliminated behind the Russian club HK Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the group stage of the financially lucrative competition. The now 35-year-old Canadian scored only one assist in these four games.

After the 2009/10 season , he decided to end his career for the time being. The reason he cited the long separation from his family, who live in Canada, and his increased vulnerability to injury. A return to the polar bears during the current season was open to Walker.

Steve Walker played again for Eisbären Berlin on November 20, 2010. He signed a contract with EHC Eisbären Berlin until the end of the season in summer 2011. Walker was only able to build on his strong past performances to a limited extent, although he scored almost one point per game in his 25 main round appearances (5 goals), but in the + / - Balance showed an atypically negative value of −1 for him. Experts also attested that it had a smaller radius of action than in the previous season, which was also justified by time out and age.

Walker is the player with the most scorer points (593), the most assists (379) and the third most goals (214) of the Eisbären Berlin in their DEL history (as of August 2019).

As a trainer

CanadaCanada  Steve Walker
Coaching stations
2012 Stayner Siskins (Assistant Trainer )
2012-2015 Stayner Siskins
2016-2017 Adler Mannheim (assistant trainer)
2017-2018 EC KAC
since 2019 EHC Red Bull Munich (assistant coach)

From 2012 to 2015, Walker trained juniors in Canada. In 2015 he became an assistant trainer at Adler Mannheim . He left Mannheim after a two-year term and was introduced to the EBEL as the new head coach of the EC KAC in May 2017 . In June 2018, Walker agreed to terminate the contract with the KAC.

Since May 2019, Walker has been assistant coach at EHC Red Bull Munich under head coach Don Jackson , for whom he had already played with the Eisbären.

Achievements and Awards

  • 2008 Most valuable player in the DEL playoffs
  • 2008 DEL All-Star Game (cancellation due to injury)
  • 2009 DEL All-Star Game
  • 2009 Best plus / minus statistics of the DEL main round
  • 2009 German champion with the Eisbären Berlin
  • 2011 German champion with the Eisbären Berlin

Career statistics

Regular season Play-offs
season team league GP G A. Pts PIM GP G A. Pts PIM
1990-91 Owen Sound Platers OHL 16 1 5 6th 4th - - - - -
1991-92 Owen Sound Platers OHL 9 2 3 5 2 - - - - -
1992-93 Barrie Colts COJHL 48 75 76 151 45 - - - - -
1993-94 Wheeling Thunderbirds ECHL 9 1 0 1 2 - - - - -
1994-95 Muskegon Fury CoHL 72 20th 26th 46 42 17th 7th 9 16 6th
1995-96 Muskegon Fury CoHL 69 43 57 100 121 5 2 4th 6th 0
1996-97 Flint Generals CoHL 16 13 16 29 34 - - - - -
1996-97 Rochester Americans AHL 3 0 0 0 17th - - - - -
1996-97 Detroit Vipers IHL 54 12 12 24 27 20th 10 9 19th 8th
1997-98 Detroit Vipers IHL 78 27 49 76 53 23 7th 9 16 13
1998-99 Detroit Vipers IHL 80 25th 32 57 72 11 1 4th 5 4th
1999-00 Detroit Vipers IHL 76 15th 31 46 67 - - - - -
2000-01 Polar bears Berlin DEL 59 19th 39 58 32 - - - - -
2001-02 Polar bears Berlin DEL 36 18th 16 34 24 4th 2 2 4th 0
2002-03 Polar bears Berlin DEL 46 21st 26th 47 30th 9 4th 5 9 6th
2003-04 Polar bears Berlin DEL 51 14th 32 46 26th 11 6th 3 9 10
2004-05 Polar bears Berlin DEL 51 16 30th 46 57 12 6th 4th 10 6th
2005-06 Polar bears Berlin DEL 50 14th 36 50 42 11 7th 4th 11 8th
2006-07 Polar bears Berlin DEL 52 14th 28 42 52 3 1 1 2 2
2007-08 Polar bears Berlin DEL 53 27 58 85 73 9 3 5 8th 4th
2008-09 Polar bears Berlin DEL 59 15th 36 51 52 9 2 2 4th 8th
2008-09 Polar bears Berlin CHL 4th 0 1 1 2 - - - - -
2009-10 Polar bears Berlin DEL 36 16 27 43 41 5 1 1 2 4th
2010-11 Polar bears Berlin DEL 25th 5 18th 23 10 12 2 6th 8th 2
COJHL overall 48 75 76 151 45 - - - - -
OHL total 25th 3 8th 11 6th - - - - -
Total CoHL 157 76 99 175 197 22nd 9 13 22nd 25th
ECHL total 9 1 0 1 2 - - - - -
AHL total 3 0 0 0 17th - - - - -
IHL total 288 79 124 203 219 54 18th 22nd 40 25th
DEL total 518 179 346 525 439 85 34 33 67 50

( Legend for player statistics: Sp or GP = games played; T or G = goals scored; V or A = assists scored ; Pkt or Pts = scorer points scored ; SM or PIM = penalty minutes received ; +/− = plus / minus balance; PP = overpaid goals scored ; SH = underpaid goals scored ; GW = winning goals scored; 1  play-downs / relegation )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ bz-berlin.de Steve Walker leaves return open , accessed on August 1, 2008
  2. ↑ morgenpost.de, Berlin polar bears are facing a difficult season , accessed on August 1, 2008
  3. ↑ Ice Hockey News special edition 2019/20, page 95
  4. ↑ DEL: Ex-Eisbär Walker becomes assistant trainer in Mannheim focus.de August 5, 2015
  5. ↑ http://www.kac.at/de/news/steve-walker-neuer-head-coach
  6. ↑ EC-KAC separates from Steve Walker. In: kac.at. June 27, 2018, accessed July 24, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Steve Walker is the new assistant coach at the Red Bulls. In: del.org. May 5, 2019, accessed July 24, 2019 .
Squad EHC München in the season 2020/21
personal data
SURNAME Walker, Steve
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian ice hockey player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1973
PLACE OF BIRTH Collingwood , Ontario, Canada