At the Special Olympics tournament in Tilburg, Netherlands, last year, Dutch Hockey ID player Derek de Jong, a 41-year-old man with Down syndrome, ended his long, passionate and impressive hockey career.

Derek was born in the Dutch city of Leiden on 27 December 1982. After a difficult start as a baby and a 4-week period of hospitalisation, he came home on January 31. He experienced a full and inspiring recovery and then it soon was clear that he was going to be able to enjoy life to the fullest. The fact that, during those years, it was possible for him as a young child to attend a regular primary school in the neighbourhood was most probably a defining factor in supporting his personal and social development.

Derek was very active, including travel and vacations, school, and family events, and it was soon very obvious that his eye-hand coordination and his dynamic attitude were way above average and that he had a keen interest in many sports.

Like many children, he at first chose to play football. However, his younger brother started to play hockey and Derek was instantly attracted to that sport. In addition, the fact that both of his parents were hockey players certainly had a positive influence on him. When he started playing hockey, there was no Hockey ID in The Netherlands, so playing hockey for Derek could have stayed a “Sorry, but not possible sport.”

Luckily enough, in 1993 Elsbeth Ruys had started within the Mixed Hockey Club Zoetermeer the very first Hockey ID team in the country. It was a beautiful blend of players with different disabilities. With all the efforts that Elsbeth and several other parents put into it, more regional clubs soon followed in her footsteps.

Derek joined the team at the age of 15. After an intensive period, it was obvious that his natural talent was pinpointed at defending and passing to his strikers.

From 1998 onwards, the Royal Dutch Hockey Union (KNHB) started to participate in these activities and to promote Hockey ID. As the years went by, Hockey ID grew very rapidly in the Netherlands and, starting in 2003, regional competitions began to mushroom in all the provinces. In those years, the teams had 6 players, and the matches were played on a ¼ pitch.

By the time many more clubs were involved, the KNHB organised a yearly nation-wide tournament in the Wagener Stadium in Amsterdam. Everybody involved at these tournaments experienced glorious days of sportsmanship and felt joy and sorrow, and most importantly, they developed friendships for life. The Hockey ID team of MHCZ, being one of the most experienced, brought home several cups and medals.

Derek was quite fanatic, and some personal family events had to be cancelled by him because of his eagerness to play the game. Visits to matches of the Dutch national hockey teams, preferably of the women’s teams, were especially important to him and a trip to the 2012 Olympics in London was an absolute “must do”.

By then he had developed his own playing style. It was recognisable in his modern techniques like the “flats,” the backhand shot and in his being able to, sometimes gently, correct the umpire. He once indicated a VAR check long before it was introduced in the hockey game!

In 2011, Anja Frederiks - Hockey ID manager at Arnhemse Mixed Hockey Club Upward - decided to start something new, something different from the usual 6 or 8 players in the formation. She introduced a national competition for teams with 11 players playing a full pitch. The pilot with 35 players was an instant success. Fortunately, Holland is a small country, and players could come from all parts of the country to participate.

Derek also started to play this 11-player game and, being not the fastest player and not used to playing the whole pitch, he truly had to adapt his way of playing. That is exactly what he did and year on end he enjoyed it, as a defender, of course. By that time, several international tournaments were organised in different countries, including Germany (Mönchengladbach, Essen) and Spain (Barcelona).

In the spring of 2019, Derek received a phone call from Marlene Döderlein de Win who was, by that time, managing two Dutch national Hockey ID teams to participate at the EuroHockey ID Championship (EHIDC) in Antwerp, Belgium. She asked Derek whether he would like to join a Dutch team. Without any hesitation and with happy tears in his eyes, he gladly shouted “YES.” Being interviewed by a local newspaper on this topic, he said: “This is my dream come true.”

An incredibly special moment of this EuroHockey ID Championship was when the Dutch Hockey ID players left their hotel for a “special training session.” To their great astonishment, the huge official players’ bus of the Dutch men’s and women’s national hockey teams was parked right front of their hotel. The national hockey players were also there to play a European Championship in Antwerp. The bus brought the Hockey ID players to the stadium where they could all meet the famous Dutch hockey players and have an intense training session with their idols.

The Hockey ID Dutch team made it to the final against Belgium and won the Gold Medal and the Trophy!

In the years following his European success (with 13 caps), Derek kept on playing with and for his MHCZ Hockey ID team. Although he still enjoyed the game very much, he sometimes started to talk about “his farewell to hockey.” Perhaps this was inspired by the ending of the careers of some of his idols like Teun de Nooijer and Taeke Taekema. Fortunately, his parents, friends and teammates could, at least for a few years, convince him to keep on playing.

Around the age of 41, Derek was still quite determined to wind down and bring an end to his illustrious hockey career. During the 2024 Special Olympics Tournament in Tilburg, he would celebrate his distinguished Hockey ID career and say “goodbye and a million thanks” to all his fellow Hockey ID players. He gave a very emotional “Thank you, thank you, bye bye and I love you all” speech to hundreds of his fellow players. Derek had developed more than 25 years of Hockey ID friendships, and the crowd gave him a tremendous round of applause and an overwhelming abundance of hugs.

During the trip home, Derek was noticeably quiet; it was over and done.

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