A deep cut on his wrist almost ended his career. But last month, just six months after that serious injury, hockey player Boris Aardenburg made his debut for the Dutch national team.
Boris (22) is following the associate degree Entrepreneurship programme at Windesheim in Almere. On 6 February, the first-year student played his first match for the Dutch team, in a match against Australia. “That was a really nice present! My parents flew to Sydney for it. My uncle and nieces live there, they were also in the stands. Very special, I will never forget that match.”
Stiff with tension when you walked into the field?
“That was definitely exciting. It was a difficult match, a higher level than I’m used to in the Dutch competition. But after I pulled one good sprint, the tension was gone and I could fully focus on playing hockey. You get into a kind of hyper concentration and you just go for it.”
Let’s go back to the moment when the national coach called you.
“I was at Windesheim. It was just before I had a lecture for a project. At first I thought: who is calling me in the morning? When I realized it was the national coach… yes, of course my heart rate went up. I thought I wouldn’t be asked anymore. I tried to stay very level-headed, but of course I was very happy! Lots of classmates congratulated me. I didn’t really notice much of the lesson, I was too distracted for that.”
You became European champion with your club Pinoké in April 2024. What was better, that final or your debut for the national team?
“Wow, that’s a tough question! I can’t answer that, they were both really great. Winning the Euro Hockey League with my team… you work towards that together for a long time, so it’s great when it happens. My debut is more personal, that’s a goal I’ve wanted to achieve for a long time and that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. It’s amazing that I’ve been lucky enough to experience both moments.”
Last summer your future looked a lot less bright when you suffered a serious wrist injury.
“It was July 1st, about a week before I was going to the European Championship with the Dutch Juniors team. I went to have breakfast and grabbed a china plate from the cupboard. It slipped out of my hand, I tried to catch it but it broke on the counter… and in one go my wrist had an enormous cut in it. At first I hoped it was just a tiny one, but at a certain point I realized that I could no longer move my index finger and middle finger. Then I thought: crap, this is not good news. During the surgery the next day it turned out that three tendons had been severed, and that the plate shard had nearly hit a nerve. If that had been the case my fingers would probably have been paralyzed and I would never have been able to play hockey at this level again.”
How did the recovery go?
“In the beginning, I could do very little with that hand. There were times when I doubted whether everything would turn out ok eventually. I wasn’t allowed to touch a hockey stick for the first three months, so I started running a lot to keep my fitness up. Really boring, but it did keep me really fit. When I was allowed to play matches again, it went really well straight away. I scored every week. And seven matches later I got that call from the national coach. Looking back, it all happened really quickly.”
Text: Wouter van Emst
Photo: Jasper van Overbeek
