There is this one story that has followed Jens Baxmann throughout his career as a professional ice hockey player. It’s just too absurd. The defender from the Harz Mountains played for a lower-class club from Braunlage as a youth. At a youth game against the Eisbären Juniors at the Christmas market in Halberstadt, he turned up so much that the Eisbären took him with them almost immediately. In 2001 he came to Berlin.
After this cozy Christmas fairy tale came the larger stories of Jens Baxmann. He developed into an important player in the first great era of Berlin, was from 2005 to 2013 seven times with the Eisbären German champions. He may not have been their most conspicuous player during this period, but he was considered reliability personified and made notable appearances as well. For example, on the way to the second Berlin title, he scored a sensational goal coming from the penalty box in the semifinals at the Hannover Scorpions.
Baxmann made 39 appearances for the national team, but things didn’t always go smoothly for him. Once he traveled to Hanover for the Germany Cup for nothing. At a hotel reception he was told that he had no room. The German Ice Hockey Federation had probably messed something up. Jens Baxmann, the edgy soft guy from Wernigerode, took it with humor.
After 860 appearances for the polar bears, he left Berlin in 2019 after 18 years and then worked in Iserlohn and finally with the second-rate Lausitzer Füchsen from Weißwasser. Now, at the age of 37, he has declared the end of his career, an eye injury makes it no longer possible for him to play. And as Baxi is, he thanked everyone for his great career on the ice – including the doctors and physiotherapists. With Frank Hördler, only one player from the strong 1985 vintage of the polar bears is now active.
Jens Baxmann left as modestly as he once appeared on the ice hockey scene. Incidentally, he himself likes the story of his discovery and likes to tell it. “I know, now some will cry out and say Baxmann and his Christmas market story,” he says. “But it’s true, my career jump was pure coincidence.”
