Translated (Czech) hockey interviews & news

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Tomas
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Translated (Czech) hockey interviews & news

Post by Tomas »

For hockey old-timers:

(from Czech "without cliches" website. Very long story; Pittsburgh years are discussed there are well - I put that i bold letters in the DEEPL translation)

Jiri Hrdina: "F@#$!%ing Lucky Guy"

Either google translated (with pictures):
https://translate.google.com/translate? ... -lucky-guy

After clicking on the link, you have to replace '****' by the actual naughty word!

Or better translated through DEEPL.COM (every ****="F@#$!%ing" :) )
**** Lucky Guy

Peripherally, I noticed her starting at me. He was waiting for me and wanted to show me who was boss. That some **** European wasn't gonna prove himself in his league.

I played my first NHL game for Calgary a few days after joining the team, in early March after the 1988 Olympics. Against the Philadelphia Flyers, probably the toughest team in the league. They had Rick Tocchet, one of the most feared players at the time, who could score and pass. He was scoring a lot of points, he just had a streak where he scored almost 20 points in five games. He was on fire, and he was proving it with some devastating hits and some brawling. Just a terror. The kind of dude you don't want to meet at full speed in the middle of the field.

Now he was coming at me to take me down.

I braced myself... We slammed into each other, total collision.

And I was the one who kept going. Tocchet probably thought he'd have an easier time with me, but I was used to fighting. Although it wasn't so common in European hockey at the time, I didn't mind the physical play. If nothing else, in every game with the Russians we tried to cut them as much as possible, which I really enjoyed. I always wanted to hit one.

Tocchet ended up with a dislocated shoulder.

Moments before that, I passed to Jim Peplinski for the winning goal, and he and Joel Otto put me on the line. For that reason alone I would have considered my debut a success, but by not dodging Tochcett and instead flattening him, I immediately made a big mark on the boys. This had even more impact than any assist.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockey

When I watched the game on TV, even the commentators appreciated how I showed that I wasn't afraid. The journalists also wanted to know how I managed to stand up to such a hard hitter.

I felt that I had attracted attention, and they immediately started to take me on.

Even with that story, I always say that everything was smooth in my career. Smooth. No major setbacks. I experienced a complication maybe in the army, when it was agreed that I would go to Jihlava, but Trenčín, despite expectations, did not take the Lukács brothers together and reached for me. But even there it had its meaning for me from a hockey point of view. Otherwise, I played an important role everywhere since I was young, I was good everywhere. In Sparta and in the national team.

And today, when I tell someone in America that I have three Stanley Cups from five seasons, and only four complete ones, they laugh at me for being a lucky kid.

"**** lucky guy," to be more precise.

A power forward who could finish and combine. That was mine. That's the way I always wanted to play, and that's the way I did. I quickly built up a lot of respect in our league, and because I'm a pretty emotional guy, there was no shortage of situations where things got pretty heated around me. For example, our fights with Jirka Seidl from Pardubice were popular among people, and we went at each other every time we played each other. Because I didn't avoid the places where it hurt, I gradually got smarter even in situations that at first glance seemed to be just about brute force. I knew how to steady myself when someone was coming at me, how to get the puck out of the mêlée in the corner.

In the national team, Vlada Ruzicka, Pavel Richter and I created the ideal line for hockey at that time. Pavel was an amazing technician, Ruzha was a skilled center with a feel for the pass, excellent on the bullpen. He didn't get into fights too much, but that's what I was for. We worked well together, and I impressed NHL scouts with my style of play. At that time, however, we and the Russians were drafted in the last few rounds because they knew we would never play for them anyway. At the beginning of the 1980s, there was still no indication that things were going to change in our country, and the only way to go overseas was to emigrate.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockey

In June 1984, I learned from the Voice of America, which we listened to, of course, that I had been picked up by the Calgary Flames, but it was immediately clear to me that defection was out of the question. I already had a family and the thought of never seeing them again haunted me. Officially, the comrades only let you go abroad on merit. You had to be 30 years old, and you had to be a world champion. When we managed to win it a year later, I figured that after the Olympics in '88 I'd be good to go. That's what I've got my eye on.

I didn't know much about the NHL. We all devoured The Hockey News, the hockey bible in our day. Anyone who came across it anywhere in the world was taking it home. One issue would circulate in countless hands. But I didn't see my first game until my first national team reunion in Pribram, where Coach Bukač played us a videotape of a Philadelphia Flyers playoff game.

Unbelievable fight.

In the summer of 1987, everything was settled, Cliff Fletcher, the Flames' general manager, came to Prague to see me, and I left for Calgary, where the Olympics were taking place, with a signed contract and with the understanding that I would stay. The tournament didn't go well and I was glad I didn't have to come back, because the failure at home was blamed on me, that I was already in the NHL. That wasn't true, who knew me, knew that I always did everything to win when I stepped on the ice.

While the guys were leaving, I just walked through the corridors of the Saddledome to transfer my gear to another cab and then the driver took me to my hotel. There I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, my head full of thoughts about not really knowing what was in store for me.

But what the hell... I'll put on what I can and, worst case scenario, I'll go back to Europe. I've come to terms with that knowledge within myself.

Still, I was nervous as hell at the first training session. No sooner had I opened the locker room door than it dawned on me what I was doing there. I thought of everyone around me as absolute pros and I didn't know if I could ever count myself as one of them.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockey

I did what felt natural to me. I walked around everyone and shook their hand. Since I've always had a bit of a firmer grip, I learned from the guys in hindsight that they appreciated it. They sensed the right kind of confidence from me.

My introductions even resonated so much that it became a ritual, and I went around the booth before games to encourage everyone.

Joey Nieuwendyk or Lanny McDonald were dudes, the team's workhorses, who took to me immediately. My new line mates Jim Peplinski and Joel Otto or Timmy Hunter did too. So did Hakan Loob, the Swede I started living with, who was a tremendous help from the start, explaining what the NHL was all about. But there were also those who didn't like my arrival. I could sense the animosity from them because they felt I was there to take their spot.

For example, a week after I arrived, they traded the then young Brett Hull to St. Louis.

Anyway, I felt terrible at the first practice. I'd only known Sparta or the national team my whole life and suddenly I was in a completely different environment.

And most importantly, I had a terrible helmet...

The guys were already wearing modern CCMs and the custodians prepared me this crazy square Jofa that we used to play with in Europe. It made me feel like a hobbit amongst the others and after a few days I had it replaced.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockeyAfter that, it went from strength to strength. My successful debut against Philly, then my first goal in Hartford, followed by another in Quebec. Of the nine games I played before the end of the regular season, I scored in seven. The guys saw that I wasn't a ***** and that I could make fun of myself and not get offended when they laughed at me for not understanding the drills.

I also knew at least a little English. The language in the Canadian hockey booth was a bit different than what I had mastered after a year with my teacher in Prague, but I still at least knew what was going on. Thanks to the fact that we were traveling around the world with the national team, I also didn't look with my mouth open at the conveniences of the West. I had an idea of what life was like there, and people from the club, but also Czechoslovak emigrants, of which there were many in Calgary, helped me with whatever I needed. When I came back to camp before the next season, I was ready with everything. I bought a house just outside of the Olympic Village, our girls started going to the local preschool, and I thrived on the ice. I scored twenty-two goals, picked up fifty-four points, played power plays, went on the ice at important times... Pure joy. I also managed to score my first hat trick in Los Angeles right at the beginning of the season. In a game against Gretzky, the greatest player of all time.

I was lucky enough to play in the NHL during his era and that of other greats, so I could see firsthand what they could do.

I remembered Gretzky from the 1977-78 season, when he was 16 and did whatever he wanted with us. Then it stuck with me how he came to the 1982 World Championships in Helsinki and the Canadians stayed in a hotel with us. He scored 92 goals and 212 points for Edmonton that year and we were all blown away by him. We were spying on him every possible moment, what he was doing and how he was acting.

He was just a skinny, pimply kid who squatted at the front desk every night, greasing black jack.

We didn't have the money for that, so at least we went around getting massages.

I managed to score four goals in a game against Hartford in the fall of '88, but the Whalers were the bottom team in the table. A hat trick against the Kings with Gretzky in the lineup was something else. Especially when we beat them that night. An 11-4 record was not unusual in those days, and shootouts like that were common. Especially for us, we didn't lose much that year, we finished as the best team in the regular season and were one of the few teams in modern NHL history to follow that up in the playoffs.

For the first time, I learned how hard the Stanley Cup is.

Yeah, **** lucky guy, I know.

Jiri Hrdina, ice hockey

But for me, first and foremost, it was a huge lesson in professionalism from overseas. Even though I was one of the team's most productive players, I didn't even make the roster for most of the playoffs. The coach used guys he was convinced would help the team more in that moment. I jumped in the first round against Vancouver and then, ironically, in the finals. In the last game in Montreal, when Joey Nieuwendyk took such a hatchet to the arm that he couldn't continue, I was moved to his spot and I finished on the second line.

We went on and on, the mood was great, and after practice, when we all worked the same way, I always looked hopefully at the board on the wall where the coaches wrote the numbers of the players by line. Nobody talked to us, just that's how the lineup for the game was announced.

17... 17... 17... My 17 was nowhere to be found.

So instead of a game, I'd shut myself in the gym for an hour and a half, often with other guys who were in the same boat as me. There were TVs all over the booth with the game on, and we'd lift weights or pedal our bikes to it.

It was mentally challenging to stay on top of things all the time, of course it was. I was expecting it all to be a little bit easier and was surprised by it. My first season in the playoffs, when I was just a punchline, I took it. I understood that the coach, despite my style of play, probably had no idea at first how I would react to the intensity of Stanley Cup games when the refs were still whistling half the little they normally whistled back then. There, when you got wrapped up in front of the net, it was life and death. At least I checked it out first. But even the second season was tougher than I would have thought.

I was far from alone.

Even Lanny McDonald, our captain and an absolute legend, didn't fit into the lineup. He didn't even play half of the final series before returning for the last game to score a crucial goal, his first and only one that playoffs. A story for the movies. Even Jim Peplinski and Timmy Hunter, the assistant captains who were part of building the team for years, are in the winning photo with the Cup in sweatpants because they didn't make it to the four lines that day.

This is where the NHL is ruthless.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockey

When I arrived at my first camp before this season, I could see that there were over 60 of us. Only twenty-three guys could make the roster. I wasn't worried about my position, I thought that if they didn't want me to play on the first team, they wouldn't have taken me. But still... I was used to the fact that whoever came to the booth played.

My advantage was that as a European I was bringing something different to the team that the Canadian guys back then hadn't experienced that much. Hakan Loob and I were the only Europeans on the club, only later did the Russian Pryachin come along, and in the late eighties we were still more like exotics. Every guy from overseas was the talk of the league.

It was obvious then what a difference there was between our hockey and overseas hockey. In Canada, for example, it was automatically assumed that in a two-on-one situation, the player with the puck would shoot. The goalie would go out on the one with the puck, the defenseman would guard the other without the puck. So if you did a good shoulder roll, signaled and passed, it was a beautiful empty net goal. The Canadians were watching like it was spring.

We were appreciated by our teammates, but to our opponents, we Czechs, Slovaks and Russians were always just "**** commies," **** communists.

But I couldn't even take it personally, I understood that it was part of the game. They yelled at me every game that I was just a piece of **** from Europe, but at the same time they knew I wouldn't be intimidated.

The Tocchet case got out there quickly, but I continued to show that I didn't mind playing hard. I could handle the heated battles of Alberta, as they call the Edmonton duels. I only had one outright fight, in Pittsburgh with a Russian from Toronto. That way I didn't need to prove what a tough guy I was, that's not why I was there. In our time, there weren't even mass fights anymore, when whole bench jumped on the ice, they were forbidden under the threat of heavy penalties. And after all, when something did go wrong and I was on the ice, I got caught up with a Jarri Kurri type, we pulled on each other's jersey to make it look like we were on the ice, but we knew neither of us was interested in any boxing.

Jiri Hrdina, ice hockeyThat doesn't mean you didn't have to be on guard all the time.

You had to.

The likes of Scott Stevens was able to shoot you down even when you weren't playing on his side, his specialty was crossing as a left back across the middle zone and smashing you without you even knowing it. He was capable of disposing of opposing players on the spot. That's how he cancelled out Karyia before Nagano and basically ended Lindros' career. I had the honor of playing him myself at the World Championships in Prague, where he gave me such a beating in the last game that I was in the hospital to receive my gold medal.

Stevens or Marty McSorley, you always had to know exactly where they were on the ice, otherwise they could kill you.

I consider it a success that nobody ever shut me down, but I got beat up a lot of times too. Once you ventured in front of the net, you had to count on axes and crosses, nobody fought you. When I look at the game records from my time today, because I have a few of them tucked away, I can't stop staring at what was happening on that ice. That was pure carnage, I'm not exaggerating. I have to laugh at what they give multi-game penalties for in the NHL these days. The league these days doesn't compare to ours at all. Not at all. I'm not saying it's good or bad, although sometimes I find the effort to keep the game clean really overdone, but it's just not the same.

For us, sometimes you wake up on the bench. And the next substitution, you were already playing again.

"Hunter, you **** dadhole!"

Timmy Hunter was a cool, smart kid who used to fix old cars in his garage with Jim Peplinski in his spare time. They'd always buy a vintage car and tinker with it. But he played above his time, and that's why he wasn't exactly popular with opposing fans. One time in Philadelphia, we had dinner with him and a couple of other teammates. There was a local NHL expert sitting near us, and he was already a little drunk.

"Hunter, **** you!"

He was cursing, hollering something every once in a while, but Timmy was all over it. He didn't pay any attention to him.

"Hey Hunter, go **** yourself."

After a while, the drunk got up and left. He was back in a minute, seven iron in hand, golf club in hand. He made a beeline for Timmy. But as he was about to cut him, Timmy jumped up.

Pink.

The fighter bought one accurately aimed for the snout and was down in a second. The cops came, took him away, and we finished our meal in peace.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockey

Similar situations happened in our time, we were not puritans. After a few beers, we would go to the club and it was not uncommon when, for example in New York, there was a hundred-metre queue outside the door of a place and we were respectfully let in. There, unlike today's guys, we were able to enjoy ourselves to the fullest because no one was taking pictures of us, we weren't living in the thrall of the world of cell phones and social networks. There were times when someone got so excited that they missed their flight the next morning. Then the boys had to fly themselves at their own expense, there was no one to wait for. There was a seven o'clock departure from the hotel, and anyone who wasn't on the bus at 7:01 was on foot.

But I was past that kind of rampage. I don't make a saint of myself, but I didn't take part in the biggest craziness anymore. You don't do at thirty what you did at twenty, do you... I was a stay-at-home dad, and on trips I lived with Hakan, who was a decent guy. We'd have a beer and then go to the pub, no big deal.

For all the fun some guys could have on their nights off, at the same time, professionally in the NHL, things automatically applied that nobody even had to say. There was an order to everything. From the fact that you always worked overtime at practice to traveling in suits, everyone had to be groomed. In our day, you still flew the line and there was no such thing as someone messing around or drinking in public.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockeyYou just weren't allowed to fall asleep on the plane, because you could also wake up with shaving foam on your head or a cut tie.

I got to know Theo Fleury in his early days as a laid-back happy guy who didn't cause trouble. I know stories of what he did later on, but I spent almost two seasons with him as a roommate after Hakan left and didn't notice any of that. We only had one extreme experience together.

When our room was robbed in Detroit.

We hung up our suits when we arrived and went out to dinner and a movie. When we got back, we just threw the stuff we were wearing on the chairs, took a shower and went to bed. In the morning, the first thing I said when I opened my closet was, "Theo, what kind of games are you playing with me, where did you put your clothes?"

"What are you doing? I didn't put anything anywhere."

Even the security floor, which required a special key, didn't keep us out. So the hotel boss squeezed the money out of our hands, and instead of breaking up, we went shopping for new outfits so we could go to the game that night. There was no way we were going to go without a jacket and tie.

True, when Theo came back after another summer and was about fifteen pounds heavier and his arms suddenly as big as a bear, I figured there might be a little something a little off, but then again, I never saw him take anything off. And no question, he was a great hockey player. Exceptional. The NHL at the time only wanted a 6-foot-6 player, and he blew into it not even a hundred and seventy. Yet he got under your skin during the game. His specialty was that he'd come at you and jump out of both feet at full speed, he was able to take down dudes a head taller that way. He threw himself into everything without a second thought, and besides his hockey skills, he had a huge heart. He was a fighter who could leave everything on the ice. I remember him fondly.

When I started in the NHL, there were ten Czechoslovaks playing there, give or take. The Stastny brothers, Klíma, Pivoňka, Ježek Svoboda, Fryčer, Musil, Ihnačák and then David Volek. Here and there someone else appeared, but after the revolution more and more young guys started to come. Anyway, we all knew each other in my time, we knew about each other. Either from the national team or simply because there were so few of us that one meeting automatically made us friends.

However, when I saw Franta Musil, who was already playing in Minnesota, at the beginning of my second season, he fooled me into thinking we'd chat right off the bat.

"Hey, Fery!" I yelled at him as we passed each other at the red line.

"**** you, I can't talk to you," he muttered.

Gradually, I realized that the NHL is not much for godric-chat. It was more like before the game, when two fighters would accidentally bump into each other or cut each other while passing through the middle of the field against each other.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockey

But in the evenings we used to meet the guys from our place. I would always study the lineup of the next opponent beforehand to see if I would see someone I knew, and then we would go out to dinner together and chat. We often talked about what was going on at home. What's coming up.

When are the communists gonna go to hell?

I remember November seventeenth, eighty-nine exactly. We played Buffalo at home the day before and the next game wasn't until the 18th, also in Calgary. That evening, I turned on CNN in the living room, and there were shots of familiar places. The West Coast of Canada is eight hours behind the Czech Republic, so they were already broadcasting what was happening in Prague.

Damn, something is finally happening, I thought.

The next day we called home to find out that events were heating up and it was going to be big. After all, something had been suspected since January, when the cops were dispersing people with water cannons. I had a lot of friends there then and gradually heard stories from them about how they were being loaded into cars and dumped outside Prague. As the cops started beating up students during the demonstrations, it was clear that something had to happen.

Fortunately, my hunch was confirmed, because if it hadn't been for the revolution, I would not have returned from America with my family after my career, I know that for sure. Anyway, November was a big deal, and the Canadians in the locker room were discussing it. They were wondering what was going on in our country.

Also because they had seen Prague themselves shortly before.

We were there for a training camp in September. I'm still proud that it was produced because I came up with the idea. After the Stanley Cup celebrations, when we were trying to figure out how to make training camp more interesting, I suggested that we go to Europe, to Prague. The management agreed, and since the Russians had just let Sergei Makarov join us, Moscow joined in.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockey

It was a fantastic experience. In Prague, they made me captain and I felt proud to be there when our people got to see the NHL for the first time. Three thousand fans came to our training sessions at the Sports Hall, and we all went without helmets and it was just buzzing because it wasn't usual here. We slept at the Intercontinental, where I got the guys to exchange money so they wouldn't get ripped off by the bouncers. All they needed was two hundred dollars and they lived like kings for a week, because a Pilsner beer cost three crowns. They were constantly miscalculating and didn't understand that a pint cost a few cents, while in Canada they paid two dollars for it. A lot of my teammates still remember this and remind me of it when we meet. Just like the White Horse in Staromák, the bar where we had a nice evening... After all, I still had a lot of friends in Prague, so we had open doors everywhere.

Unfortunately, the games looked like that. Our national team that we faced had been preparing for us for three months after various training camps, they unleashed a young line of Jagr, Reichel, Holík on us and we lost both times.

But the guys were still excited. First of all because of the crystal my friend helped them buy, which had to be sent in a special box via the embassy, but mostly because it wasn't so much fun in Moscow. There was still a heavy totalitarian regime there.

In mid-December 1990, my parents were on their way to Calgary and we were on a trip with the team. I didn't do well at all, I was out of the lineup for a couple of games. After a morning warm-up and a team lunch in Los Angeles, I went to bed in my room before the phone woke me up half an hour later. General manager Cliff Fletcher called to say that they were in the room with coach Doug Riegsbrough and to come see them.

"We have news for you, we've made a decision. We've traded you to the Pittsburgh Penguins," they told me without much talking around.

I was absolutely not expecting something like that.

My first reaction was that I wasn't going anywhere. Sorry, but I'm going back to Europe. With that, I packed up my stuff in my room and said goodbye to Theo. The assistant GM drove me to the airport, and upon returning to Calgary, I was scheduled to leave for Pittsburgh the next day. My wife and I had endless debates that night about whether or not to fly in the morning. I couldn't imagine that after we were finally settled in properly and the girls started school, I was suddenly going to take my family and move them across the continent. Plus, Pittsburgh was stuck at the bottom of their division at the time, and Mario Lemieux, while a top-notch superstar, hadn't played in almost a year due to a back injury, and no one knew if he'd even be back.

No, I really didn't want to.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockey

Let's go to my parents... We passed each other at the airport without meeting. Out of the month they were visiting us in Calgary, we saw each other two days on Christmas.

Eventually, I pulled myself together and went to Pittsburgh. I had no idea what to expect, but I vowed to show Calgary that I wasn't such a bad player that they would get rid of me. That's how I took the trade. That I wasn't good enough anymore, that's why they got rid of me.

Nobody told me that the Penguins have this long-haired kid from Kladno, a tremendous talent, who secretly cries in the shower because he doesn't get along with anybody in the locker room and he misses them. I figured out after a while that Craig Patrick, the Pittsburgh GM, found out how I was helping Robert Reichl in Calgary in his early days in the NHL. Then when the Flames weren't playing me, he sensed a chance to bring me in to bang with young Jagr.

Not once did I hear that from anyone in the clubhouse. It was only years later that I heard from people who took credit for it and told me that they convinced Craig to get me as Jagr's tutor.

For myself, it was important that I scored a goal in the first game against Calgary and felt a great sense of satisfaction. And the fact that Mario came back soon after and we started to make an unbelievable run.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockey And it went well with Jagr. They sat us next to each other in the booth, he took me to the Nemec family where he lived, and we became friends. I wasn't playing teacher, because Jarda really just needed someone he felt comfortable around and could talk to. Someone who could help him get comfortable in a new world and who could explain to him in a clear way what the NHL is all about and how to approach certain situations. It was small things, but in sum, pretty important. The same little things that Hakan explained to me in my early days in Calgary and that I just passed on, first to Alby Reichl and now to Jagr.

There was only one problem with him. Sometimes he would step on the gas in the car and he didn't want to pay the fines. He even ended up in court a few times and Craig had to vouch for him with the police. That's when he talked a lot of sense into Jard.

I had no idea at the time what a phenomenal hockey player he would grow up to be. Yes, I'd seen him as a youngster in the national team, but that didn't mean that much. But it's true that he showed incredible things in his first seasons in the NHL. After all, everyone remembers his famous goal in the '92 finals against Chicago, when he flipped Franta Kucherov between his legs and sent a backhand pass to Belfour.

I also had my moment of glory next to him when I managed to score two goals in the first playoff game in the seventh game of the opening round against the Devils. Just recently I saw a table on Canadian TV showing who had two goals for Pittsburgh in the seventh game, because nobody had more. There was Crosby, Rust, Talbot. And the Hero.

Honestly: The goal I'll always remember as the one that made my dream come true will be the lid call on Tretiak after Ruz's pass down the blue line. He got us silver at the 1983 World Championships. But this game against New Jersey is one to remember. I had a great feeling inside at the time, thinking, I guess I'm not that old yet. On that first and finally winning goal, the Russians were on the ice, i.e. defenseman Fetisov Kasatonov. It always made me happy when I helped beat them.

Ironically, it was also my only two goals in the playoffs ever.

Two goals, three Stanley Cups. **** lucky guy, you know.

I was lucky as hell to get on two fantastic teams in the NHL. In Calgary, incredible teamwork led us to the Cup, we were able to dominate through hard work even without pure superstars, we stuck together as one big group of friends. It was in Pittsburgh that an incredibly loaded roster full of amazing players finally clicked. Paul Coffey, Larry Murphy, Ron Francis, Kevin Stevens, Marc Recchi, Jagr, they were all great guys. And finally, we got that Rick Tocchet guy.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockeyAnd Mario was the king of all.

The way he came back from the sideline speaks volumes about how unique a player he was.

After ten months without hockey, he got on his bike for three days, then took to the ice with us twice, and after less than a week of light training, he went to play in Quebec, where he recorded three goals. After three games he was 2+4 and continued in that vein.

He was a classic leader by example. One who leads by example. He wasn't one for making speeches, if he said anything it was more likely to be in the playoffs, but his excellence at the plate was unmatched. He gave you confidence just by seeing him in the locker room getting dressed in the gear next to you. Other than that, he was a friendly, nice guy. He talked to everyone as equals, no condescension. When we finally made it to the Stanley Cup with his great help, he invited the whole team over to his house.

We ended up with the Cup in the pool there, which is one of my fondest memories of the celebration.

Then, my second year in Pittsburgh, I got to know another one-of-a-kind person in the league. Scotty Bowman took over and I found out why he is the most successful coach in history.

In games, it should be added.

There, he showed a really hard-to-describe feel for knowing what line was doing well and on whom. He deployed players like no one else and was able to keep the team on a roll. He was incredibly knowledgeable about hockey, knew everyone's strengths and weaknesses and was able to take advantage of them.

It was just his training sessions that were crazy.

As detailed as he was, he would cling to complete useless things, like we could only turn to one side during a particular drill or something. We all resented it, and morale went down. For example, when he would chase us around in circles and we had to speed up on a whistle, or slow down on the next one, I would whistle to him that there was a maglajs in it. Then he'd yell angrily who was doing it.

So Mario went to Craig and told him that it couldn't be done that way, that the assistants should run the training sessions and that Scotty should only ever show up for the game.

They were both able to accept that, and that helped us to our second Stanley Cup.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockey

The celebrations, which were unforgettable in Calgary when tens of thousands of people lined the streets during the parade, were worth it here both times. The first year we drove through the city to the 60,000-seat Three Rivers Stadium for American football and baseball. We were each driven around in a convertible, making a circle before being dropped off at the podium. The year after that was celebrated in the local central park, which was again packed with people. I remember images from here that will never fade from my mind. Partly because I recorded them on camera.

Yeah, even back then. It wasn't quite a GoPro, and the picture wasn't exactly HD quality, but a small one-handed camera was something you could get. Admittedly, just about anyone doesn't have such a treasure at home, my friends and I would occasionally play the footage.

But then once we went on to the boat party, I didn't record anything. I couldn't.

Shortly after the second Pittsburgh party, I made an appointment at Craig's office. He welcomed me, saying I'd get so-and-so raises, but that he could only give me a two-year contract.

I said, "Craig, Craig, wait. I'm not here to sign a contract. I'm here to say goodbye to you. I'm done with hockey."

It was quiet for a while.

"Are you serious?"
"Yeah. Dead serious."

He was expecting me to bid on money and contract length, and I surprised him with this announcement. We shook hands and it was done. To this day, Craig gives credit to the fact that there have been so many times in his career that he's offered someone an extension and better money and they turned him down. But I felt enough was enough. I was fed up with hockey after seventeen years of playing professionally. My shoulder was hurting, I was finishing the season with a knee brace due to strained ligaments, and I couldn't imagine starting summer training again after another Stanley Cup celebration. I could have continued in Switzerland or Germany, I had offers from there as well, but the idea that after what I had experienced I would be back on buses somewhere again, discouraged me as well.

World champion, three times Stanley Cup... I figured that this is enough, I can hang it up with peace of mind and rather than risk killing my body, I'd rather keep my strength up and play sports just for fun. My family and I went straight to Hawaii and that was the end of my hockey career.


Jiří Hrdina, ice hockey

Like this, not definitively. There was one more little twitch.

I was persuaded by old Spartans, Standa Hajdušek, Karel Holý, Láďa Vlček and others, that it was a great idea to play with them in the second league for Velké Popovice.

And so I did. I'll go for it, so I can sweat and enjoy a beer for lunch, right...

But we had a team full of amateurs, guys who came to play after work. They'd just been promoted from the county competition, and they weren't really up to the higher competition. My fourth game we came to Havlíčkův Brod.

It was sold out, and they borrowed a line of young guys from Pardubice. We got 1:14.

I scored our only goal. Basically, almost like Lanny McDonald in his last game, you could say... But seriously, I immediately told the guys that I'm sorry, but after everything I've been through, I'm really not up to this anymore. I've never played a competition since. Occasionally, I'll just go out with the old guard, but over the years I've gotten to enjoy just being able to knock somebody around, no golfers or points. And I keep myself busy with tennis and golf, that's enough for me.

Mostly, I'm always at hockey, so I don't miss anything in life.

No sooner was I done in Pittsburgh than I took advantage of a previous arrangement with Calgary and started working as their scout. In the early 1990s, when the NHL was opening up more and more to Europeans, clubs were gradually looking for someone to scout players for them here. I was tempted by this opportunity, I couldn't stand to do nothing, so I went for it.

I remember my first assignment exactly, a tournament of 20 boys of the year 1974 in Klatovy. They sent a scout for North America to help me learn the ropes and show me how to do things. Player reports had to have a certain structure even then.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockey

And they were written by hand, no computer. I didn't get one until a few years later, but it was just a pre-flood one with a black screen and a blinking white cursor. After seventeen seasons, when after a game I would maybe lie down in my room, turn on the TV and have a beer, I would suddenly be writing several-page essays and then spend eternity on the fax machine. I'd cram in maybe twenty-five A4s, then find out that it came out wrong on the other side of the world, so I'd do it all over again... I was learning completely new things. And I've done a lot of traveling that I've planned for myself. Before the internet, it was something crazy. I was sneakily getting stats for caps and Calgary logo t-shirts, begging youth national team nominations from coaches, and relying on one assistant in Russia to get me into all the stadiums.

The lumberjack days of scouting.

But it was all the more fun. Gradually we formed a group of guys, former opposing players and teammates, who we would meet at various times around the world and sometimes travel with. We have a rule that we don't talk about the players together, but on the other hand, nowadays you don't have a chance to hide someone from the competition anyway. The hockey world is scouted to the last bit, it's just about what type of players your club needs. Back in the 90's you could find someone in a competition that others had no idea about, but those days are long gone.

It's also nice to see how priorities have changed over time. When I started, 5'8" was a small player. The priority was heartthrobs, strong guys who maybe didn't even have to know how to skate that much, but most importantly, not to be afraid.

Today it's the opposite. It probably wouldn't happen again that we all agreed in Calgary before the 1997 draft that we wanted the Russian Samsonov, but our head scout, an old school guy, turned him down. He's small.

We took Daniel Tkazczuk, whose NHL career ended at 19 games, with the sixth pick, and Samsonov was snatched up by Boston two spots behind us. As a 19-year-old, he scored twenty-two goals the very next season and ended up collecting nearly 600 points in the league.

Honestly, you don't have to be a big expert to be impressed by the smartest guys. Just watch the game and they will come out of the game themselves, they will come to you. There are clouds of those who ride up and down, but talent and feel for the game is something else entirely. That's how I used to be blown away by David Výborný, and later by Kuba Voracek, I always liked his style and commitment.

But I've seen a lot of teenagers next to him, soaping each other up... I play around 200 games a year. For Dallas, where I moved in 1999, I'm now in charge of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany and Switzerland. At the beginning of the season, I always go around to all the junior teams and clubs where the youngsters play to map out the year, and then I gradually go to see the guys who interest me and send reports about them to America. On top of that, of course, I see all the national events of the 18s and 20s.

Jiří Hrdina, ice hockey

Most often, sometimes on the way back from Switzerland in a blizzard, I wonder if it's all still worth it, because the work has no tangible result. It depends on so many factors... It all comes down to how your club finishes in a given season, which has a major impact on the order of draft picks. Admittedly, as scouts, we then prepare a prioritized list of players for the general manager, but that list is basically just crossed off on draft day as teams ahead of you take the names you pick. And even if you're just reaching for someone you really wanted, you're simply taking an unfinished product. An 18-year-old kid who meets some chick a year later and loses the will to work for it...

But that's why we interview players, we take a personal interest in them, we find out what kind of families they come from, and after the season we interview the selected ones. I've had a lot of years of questions, and I try to find out as much as I can. But the agents prepare the players to answer them the way the clubs want to hear them. Sometimes I feel like I'm having a chat with a robot.

But at the same time, the same thing still applies as in my day.

When anyone steps on the ice in the NHL, they have to show they can do something. That they can do it. And when a fearsome opponent comes at him, he shouldn't duck.

Yeah, a lot of these guys are gonna get to the NHL a lot easier than we had to. But that doesn't mean they're gonna be **** lucky guys.


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Last edited by Tomas on Fri Sep 24, 2021 3:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Tomas
Posts: 3444
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews

Post by Tomas »

(from Czech "without cliches" website. Very long story; Pittsburgh years are discussed there are well - at the very beginning)

David Koci: "Fight for your dream"

Either google translated (with pictures):
https://translate.google.com/translate? ... o-svuj-sen

OR:
The very beginning (Pittsburgh years, mainly) translated by me:
http://www.letsgopens.com/tomas_translations.php?id=73

or very good deep-learning translation through DEEPL.COM of the full article:
Fighting for your dream
David Koci ice hockey



Sorry for the expression, but there's no other way to say it.

In the summer of 2003, I got really pissed off.

By the previous fall, my career in America was looking bleak. I was starting the second year of my rookie contract, and once again I didn't even make the Pittsburgh backup team, being sent all the way back to the ECHL, to the second farm team. When I sensed this during training camp, I called my agent, Mr. Henyš, and told him I didn't see the point anymore. Sparta was interested in me, we had an agreement with coach Hadamczik and I wanted to go back to the Czech Republic.

But Pittsburgh refused to let me go.

It got to the point where I asked for our general manager Craig Patrick's number and I called him, this NHL icon, and told him straight up what I thought.
"Craig, you don't even count me, you're putting me on the East Coast for the second year, so let me go, I don't want to be here anymore."

"No."

That's all he said. No comment. I'm completely stumped.

"No, you're staying here," he responded to all my other arguments. I pounded him for half an hour and he gave me no answers other than, "No, you're staying here." He basically didn't even talk to me. When I realized there was no other way, I hung up in a rage. I was staying at the apartment of my teammate Michal Sivek, who had just been called up to the first team, and as I was in the crash, I swung my cell phone against the wall. So hard that it dented it, left quite a hole.

Sorry, Michael.

I had no choice but to pack up and go to Wheeling and make up for it. On the one hand, it was positive that the club cared so much about me, but...

David Koci in the gym

After the season I was getting incredibly annoyed that I still hadn't made it. This feeling swelled inside me more and more and I let it out in training over the summer. It wasn't a platitude, I really felt like I was going to work my ass off, get conditioned.

I told myself one more thing - when I get to camp and anyone touches me, just looks at me the wrong way, I'll wash them out. I don't care who it is. I figured that's what they eat in America, and I'm a big guy, so I'm cut out for it. I'm just gonna try it like this.

Poor Ross Lupaschuk.

On the first day of camp, he, a normal average player, was in front of the net during one drill, I pushed him away and he hit me back. I grabbed him and slashed him. He bounced it.

"What are you doing, are you crazy?" he yelled at me.

I didn't care, I wanted my spot. Ever since then, everybody's taken it from me. I knew this was my chance, I had to build up an aura of a fool around me that everyone would fear.

During the two model games at camp, no one even came near me, everyone could see I was on a roll. It was a game, and I found the instructions for it.

I turned myself into an unguided missile.

The coaches noticed. One thing is that I played a lot better than I used to, I was physically pumped up, but to jump from being the 15th running back in the organization to the first-team boundary, that was my new skill set. I didn't get sent down from the Penguins until right before the season started, Kris Beech and I were the last to go on the farm. That alone was a huge honor for me.

I kept mowing it down. I was cutting anybody's head off, which got the attention of hitters from other teams. If I went after somebody, they'd come at me immediately. I provoked them with aggressive play, sometimes clean, sometimes borderline vicious. I played some pretty solid hockey and added what they call toughness overseas. Toughness, toughness, resilience.

Besides the hockey stick, my main working tool became my fists.

The first year you don't mind it because you're riding on the euphoria that everyone will suddenly start treating you differently. Coaches, teammates and even massage therapists suddenly respect you. You're no longer someone to be reckoned with, but a prospect to be reckoned with for the first team.
Gradually, though, I realized what I'd gotten myself into.

I'm not a natural brawler. At first I was amused at how the general view of me had changed, but then I realized I had to do this every day. If I stopped, they'd marry someone else.

It's like drugs. You start taking them, you're on top of it, and then eventually you realise you're in it up to your ears and you can't get off. Plus, in my case, I didn't want to give up something I was a top five player in the league at. In fact, during that season I jumped to third in penalty minutes, I had almost 300. I was chasing with McGrattan and Vandermeer to see who could get more five-minute majors for fighting, which was factored into the stats back then. I had twenty-five, they had about thirty.

It was a kind of prestige. That many fights, that's a sign you're not afraid.

In our time, maybe three bullies really enjoyed their role, the rest, like me, understood that this is how they could make it. Sometimes I enjoyed fighting, too, but often I knew I was up against killers. The aforementioned McGratttan or MacIntyre, they were butchers. I used to get sick to my stomach before a fight with them because I just knew it was going to be a slaughter again.

But I was enjoying hockey at that level so much that I wanted to do it.

I was close to the NHL in my third year on the farm, and towards the end of the season Coach Eddie Olczyk even told the newspaper that he was going to call me up because I had figured out my role, but it didn't happen. Pittsburgh was playing horribly that season, whereas we in the AHL were building our position for the playoffs, so they kept important players with us while sending up guys from the fifth line to at least finish the rest of the regular season.

Then came the lockout, a serious injury and finally a contract with Chicago, where they took me as a brawler.

In March 2007, I lived to see it. However, my NHL dream came true in a way I didn't really enjoy, because I didn't have a great season game-wise or battle-wise. I perceived that they rather just wanted to see me since they had already signed me. The Blackhawks weren't playing great either, so they just wanted me to show up. I had mixed feelings about it, I was stressed. Plus, I didn't come in right after the call, but I waited three days, wondering what to expect. My head was spinning. It was a strange start.

But it turned out as well as it could. If I wanted to plan my opening night, I couldn't have come up with a better scenario.

Before I stepped on the ice, I was gripped by a huge nervousness. We were playing against Phoenix, where there was a bully I didn't like to fight. Josh Gratton, no star, but he had a cannon shot and he was small. I don't like little bruisers. You go at them like they're the absolute favorite, but they're agile and dangerous. Ninety percent of the time you win, but when they put it on you, it's a shame.

And Gratton was simply good.

I didn't even look for him, he came up to me in the first inning and said let's go at it. I was so nervous, I dropped my gloves and before I knew what was happening, he knocked me out with one punch.

I was sitting in the penalty box and I knew it was a mess. They took me like a bully, and I got taken down at the first opportunity. I knew that could be the end of me. A lot of things flashed before my eyes like a movie, from the phone thrown against the wall, through all the years of hard work to get here. I was so angry with myself at that moment, why I had screwed up so badly.

"What are you doing here?", I asked in my head.

It couldn't get any worse, I told myself. I got into a state that I sometimes managed to induce, I felt a tremendous power within me. I didn't care, I didn't give a damn. I knew that if I got even one more shift on the ice, I would dominate. I'm going to leave everything I have in me, I'm going to push myself to the limit.

David Koci in the hoodieI went back to the bench and the guys tapped me. More out of sympathy, out of courtesy. Easy, kid, easy.

I didn't notice them at all. I just sat down and waited to see if coach would call me back. I was prepared that it might not come.

"Fourth line on the ice."

Okay, here we go.

I got in there and Gratton was looking at me like, "Hey, idiot, you got it, huh?"

I didn't care. The puck was thrown, the puck went to their runner, and I flew into him.

Boom, I smashed it into the boards.

The puck rolled over to the other defenseman.

Boom, he bought it, too.

I scattered them on the Plexiglas. Both clean hits.

Gratton came up behind me and yelled, "Idiot, what are you doing, I'm gonna shoot you down again."

"Come on."

I hit him.

The guys and the coach were all excited. I showed that I was a fighter, that I didn't screw up. I may have gotten my ass kicked, but I went at it again. By the time I came back from the penalty box to the bench for the second time, they were patting me on the back. Good job, kid. I was in a trance.

I played great every shift, except at the very end I hit one of the other guys in the middle of the field. I think it was within the rules, but he took a bad spin and bled. All their other players jumped on me from the ice and after the third fight I automatically went to the dressing room.

I sat there unsure if it was a screw-up. Wayne Gretzky, who was coaching Phoenix at the time, yelled at me what an dadhole I was. But as the door to the locker room opened and our coach Denis Savard was the first to rush in, rushing after me and shaking my shoulders about how great it was, I immediately had a better impression.

After all, I would have preferred to score three goals, but praise is always nice.

Still, I couldn't shake the strange feeling, because I never wanted to come across as a no-brainer. I knew that in America they like it, that the fans and the bosses demand it, but I knew that a lot of people back home would condemn me for it. That's what happened.

But whatever, we won 7-5 and Chicago was ecstatic. Nobody even knew about them that season until then, and suddenly they were being celebrated in the newspapers and were number one in the highlights on ESPN. Story? That a certain Kochi flew onto the ice and went on a rampage, getting the team pumped up.

I believe in fate, something between heaven and earth. I guess it was meant to be.

In hindsight, it was the best calling card of the brawlers. Immediately, everyone knew I had come and made a splash in Phoenix. Three fights in one game, forty-two penalty minutes and a dude on a stretcher. A week later, we came to Anaheim, the toughest team in the NHL. Parros, O'Donnell, O'Brien, Moen, Pronger... I got three punchers looking at me at the red line, and the first shift, one of them came at me, the second one another. It was on. Wherever we played after that, I felt respect. I wasn't just "the new guy" anymore, I immediately showed that I wasn't afraid.

And I was playing in the NHL.

I was first knocked out by Brian McGrattan in the AHL. Michal Sivek, who I played with there, had a groin problem and was out for about four months. I woke up in the dressing room and saw him.

"What do you mean you're not playing?" I had no idea where I was.

And he was looking at me like, what am I crazy, he's been out for a quarter of a year.

They immediately ran concussion tests on me, and they came back fine, but then when I saw the fight on video, I was amazed at what I was doing. It was terrifying to watch myself buy a muzzle scrape, pick myself up and go straight to the dressing room instead of the penalty box. I didn't know anything about myself and didn't remember any of it.

I never got a really hard hit where I was shaking on the ice like Todd Fedoruk used to. Yeah, there was a lot of blood when Zdeno Chara broke my nose, but nothing brutal, even though it looked like it. Anyway, with every injury like that, with every broken bone, the fear of something happening to you again gradually grows. The stresses start to build up. You're no longer fearless before a fight.

It's not the pain, it's the adrenaline that won't let you admit it. You may fall, you may stagger, everything goes black, but nothing hurts. That's later. I remember breaking my arm on D.J. King. I was punching, punching, and suddenly I want to set up another punch, I make a fist, and something's wrong. I look down and there's a bump on my hand. I knew right away. Or when Westgarth broke my jaw. There was a crack, like when you crack a pencil between your fingers. I didn't feel anything, I just heard it. Then I bit my finger in punishment, but no problem, so I figured it was okay.

David Koci gives a fist bump during the gameWe fought in the first period and I finished the game. After the game, the doctor said my jaw was in two pieces.

I consider my best fight to be the one with Brian McGrattan from our great game in Calgary in January 2010. We were jockeying for playoff position and all three of our brawlers were in the lineup that night and just as much from them. One on the second line, one on the third line and me on the fourth line. We started the game with the second line - a brawl. We went third line - brawl. And then us. It reminded me of the boxing schedule in Vegas. Lightweight, middleweight, and then heavyweight.

McGrattan and I stood on the bullpen, and we knew what we were in for. We just looked at each other, we took off, we both threw it away and we were cutting. It was a great, long fight. I lost my balance a little bit at the end, but otherwise we were pretty even. We nodded to each other, good job.

The crowd was ecstatic, going crazy. One fight, two, three, then it was on. Because none of the three twosomes lost, they were all fights that gave both sides momentum. Because when someone gets knocked out, their team goes quiet, but this helped the momentum of the match tremendously. It energized the fans and the players.

At the beginning of my career, I used to have problems getting in the mood right at the start of a match. I wanted to play as much as possible and I knew that if I had a bad first inning, I wouldn't get another one. There's no way that as a technical player, I would just go around the first period and then go at it in the third. No. I had to be good right away or I would have been left sitting on the bench.

I used to just drink coffee in the locker room, which was no good. But I gradually found out that it suits me to go to the gym before the game, because it always makes you feel good. I found that out in Colorado. I was so pumped up after the workout that I could have played right away, and I realized I was going to do the same thing before the game. I won't get tired because I won't spend that much time on the ice anyway, but at least I'll be ready. I've been giving myself short, dynamic workouts to get myself going, and the state where a player is most in the moment is induced right off the bat.

It worked.

Hockey fighters respect each other. At first, I used to be able to win fights with some mean punches, where maybe someone was on the ground and I'd give them another one to get the blood flowing, but I gradually came to realize that's not what the role is about. When you do it for a long time, you realise how hard it is and you appreciate everyone who has stuck it out.

David Koci holds a hockey stickI had one friend among the fighters, Latvian Raitis Ivanans, who played the most in Los Angeles. We met a couple of times in a bar and had a lot of fun back at the farm. We'd always say hello to each other in the hallway before the game, holler at each other to see if the other guy was playing, and roll our eyes that it was going to be another beating. Then we'd cut each other up on the ice and talk again in civilian clothes at night. We knew it was just our job, Raitis was a nice guy.

But it's not often that fun. A lot of fighters fall into a spiral of depression and pills. Before the 2004 lockout, everybody was on them. Steroids, kickers, everything... Guys got high, their eyes lit up, and they went for it.

I was never into that. I've never tried a cigarette in my life, I'll drink alcohol, but I've never been good at pouring, and I've only tried tobacco. I'm not prone to addictions, I've always been able to tell myself enough. I drink a lot of coffee, for example, but if I tell myself I won't have it for a month, I can stand it. And come to think of it, nobody's ever offered me any of the hoaxes in all that time either.

The only time I've taken pain pills. I'll admit, they helped me get over the spleen at the time, because I had been preparing for camp for four months and the very first game I came down with the broken jaw I mentioned earlier.

Thanks to the pills, I made it through the first fortnight. You take one, you're normally groggy and it's actually pretty good. But when I think that many people used to take them regularly and wash it down with beer on the plane, I'm not surprised that they only lasted three years in the NHL. They'd take a sleeping pill at the hotel, a pill in the morning to kick them off, and the same thing over and over again.

But since a few guys died years ago, all the drugs have to be prescription. You used to go to the team doctor and tell him you were in pain, and he'd give it to you without anybody bothering. Now, by regulation, he's in charge and everything is recorded.

The NHL has been my goal since I was a kid playing in Prague on the Stars. I wasn't attracted to the Extraliga, I used to buy overseas hockey magazines and have my idols plastered on the bottom of the shelf in my seat in the booth. Joe Kocura and his ilk. Tough guys, tough guys.

I told myself I wanted to be like them, I worked hard and I kept believing, even though a lot of people told me I had no chance. I was always one of the better ones, but later on at Sparta I fell into the average, and then the second year in the junior team I took off again. I had graduated from high school, so I started to focus only on hockey and something broke. I got into the twenties, got drafted and the chance to go to Canada came up. I didn't think twice.

I'm a typical bull. I'm calm for a long time, but when I get angry, I start pounding my hoof, steam comes out of my nostrils, I release my energy and fly. That's why I became who I was.

A hockey slugger.

I'm sorry that a lot of people think of that as a player who can't even stand on skates. No, I don't. Even a brawler has to have a certain level of skill and understanding of the system, a team can't afford to put someone on the ice who can't do that.

I didn't play hockey to fight.

I fought to play hockey.

I enjoyed the world of the NHL, the professionalism and the luxury of it, so much that I didn't want to leave. I was paying my dues to enjoy my time in practice and in games alongside the best hockey players in the world and under top leadership, which I draw from in my coaching career today.

My two bare hands were my ticket to a dream come true.
This is the end of the story (again, via DEEPL.COM):
I'm a typical bull. I'm calm for a long time, but when I get angry, I start pounding my hoof, steam comes out of my nostrils, I release my energy and fly. That's why I became who I was.

A hockey slugger.

I'm sorry that a lot of people think of that as a player who can't even stand on skates. No, I don't. Even a brawler has to have a certain level of skill and understanding of the system, a team can't afford to put someone on the ice who can't do that.

I didn't play hockey to fight.

I fought to play hockey.

I enjoyed the world of the NHL, the professionalism and the luxury of it, so much that I didn't want to leave. I was paying my dues to enjoy my time in practice and in games alongside the best hockey players in the world and under top leadership, which I draw from in my coaching career today.

My two bare hands were my ticket to a dream come true.
These are the two fights he talks about in the article:



and

Tomas
Posts: 3444
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews

Post by Tomas »

Zohorna and Simon:

Either (not so good, but with pictures) Google-translated:

https://translate.google.com/translate? ... 0_nhl_bobo

or better translated through DEEPL.COM:
Worker Zohorna and the rescuing Simon. How the Czechs will meet in Pittsburgh
August 4, 2021 4:59 PM

The Czechs are back in Pittsburgh. Radim Zohorna and Dominik Simon. They are almost the same age and both are going to battle for a shot at the first team. Only each of them is experiencing something completely different. The former is following up a successful debut season overseas, the latter is returning to perhaps take one last shot at restarting his career.

The 26-year-old Simon is beginning his second chapter with the Penguins. He first came in as a big-time talent, having played on the national team alongside Jagr. Gradually, he even settled in for a time next to the star Sidney Crosby, who requested his services himself.

His second chance will have a completely different feel. He returns quietly, as a hockey player saving the overseas part of his career.

He languished at the end of his first engagement in Pittsburgh, and struggled to make a name for himself last year at his new address in Calgary. Although he played with stars Gaudreau and Tkachuk in training camp, coach Darryl Sutter stopped betting on him after he came off the bench and gave him just 11 NHL games.

What hasn't changed is that he earned a two-way contract here again. And this time, only for a year. It's likely that if this year's attempt doesn't work out either, a return to Europe will be the only option in his mind.

One other thing is a little different. When he joined the club six years ago, the local media welcomed him. You won't find much about him in the local press this time either.
Up to the NHL

Radim, the youngest of the Zohorn brothers, is having a far more exciting adventure. Last year he surprisingly moved overseas, where he left a great impression and got to continue his cooperation. With a two-year contract, the second year of which is one-way, he will get the opportunity to show that he really has what it takes to make it in the NHL.

"Staying in Pittsburgh was a priority. They gave me a chance, and the whole club works at a fantastic level. Plus, I'm practically a lifelong Pittsburgh fan, so I'm living my dream here," the 25-year-old Zohorna said after signing a new $750,000 contract.

He admitted that he was nervous about the long wait for a new contract, which was also prolonged because of the expansion and entry draft. However, agent Robert Spalenka reassured his client that the signing with the Penguins would work out in the end.

"So the players had to be patient after the rookie contract ended, and we had a clear idea of where we wanted to take the negotiations with the club," he said.

The 198-centimeter tall thunderer was praised by coaches and management. They liked how agile he is with his physique and skilful in finishing.

"Radim impressed us last season with his ability to quickly transition to a smaller ice surface and adapt his game. He's a forward with a lot of potential and we're excited to watch his growth as a player," said Penguins General Manager Ron Hextall.

Zohorna is leaving nothing to chance and has been working hard on the ice and in the weight room for eight weeks to be as ready as possible for the start of his second season, and Hextall has pulled him for more than eight NHL games.

"It could be that I'll start on the farm again and get a peek at the first team later in the season. That's just the way overseas hockey works. But I'm mainly looking forward to training with the team and fighting for a spot. The competition will be huge," he believes.

Will he and Simon reach a happy ending to their different stories?
**********************************************************************************************************************************
Agent Spalenka on Zohorn

"It's understandable that clubs operating on the edge of the salary cap are looking for quality hockey players for reasonable money. Pittsburgh is no exception and in Radim they found just such a player. At the same time, Radim was excited about his first year in the organization, the system of work and training and, last but not least, the opportunity to start in the NHL itself.

The player's staying overseas was a clear priority for us, and Radim adapted his summer preparation to that. Pittsburgh secured the player with a qualifying offer, but the final terms of the contract were significantly improved. This also shows how impressed Radim was with the club's management. Now it's up to him to take the next step in his career and become a solid NHL player in the coming seasons."
***********************************************************************************************************************************
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Tomas
Posts: 3444
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews

Post by Tomas »

(from Czech "Without Cliches" website. Very long story. No link to PIttsburgh - just a really cool personal story)

Martin Hanzal: "Pain"

Czech original with some cool pics:

https://www.bezfrazi.cz/pribehy/martin-hanzal/bolest


or very good deep-learning translation through DEEPL.COM of the full article:

(I am so incredibly impressed by @Gaucho countrymen behind DEEPL - the stories on "Without Cliches" are always full of very colorful phrases, idioms, very informal language - and DEEPL (unlike, say Google translate) gets it 99% correctly.)
Pain
Martin Hanzal ice hockey


"Come on, let's go, guys!"

The booth movement is starting to pick up again. As always, as the break comes to an end and the players are putting on their helmets and gloves again, and some are pulling their jerseys over their vests, which they had momentarily shed earlier. They cheer each other on, they cheer.

The day before Christmas 2018 is no different than usual. We're playing at home in Dallas against the Islanders and in a few moments the second period is about to start at 0-0. Concentration is at an all-time high.

"Go! Go! Go!" Hands clenched into fists, one by one, the team heads for the ice.

And I...

I'm lying on the massage table, hearing all this partly from behind the open door and across the hall. I'm being examined by a doctor and I refuse to admit to myself that I've just played my last period in the NHL.

I refuse to acknowledge what I sort of subconsciously know. This is just the end. It can't go on.

In early December, I came back from my third and most challenging spinal surgery and thought I was going to be fine. My back was still feeling a little tender, but I took it to be just a natural stiffness that would gradually heal.

I made it through six games, and I felt like I was starting to get back into the swing of things. In game seven, after the last substitution shortly before the end of the first period, a completely routine substitution, I left the ice and in a split second it was there again. It was like my leg went out. The exact same feeling I remembered from before my first surgery ten years earlier. A twinge in the back of my thigh and... Nothing. It was like I suddenly had no left leg.

No. Not this, I thought. This is what I was afraid of.

By the time I got to the locker room, it was getting worse with every step. I just walked up to the gurney, bumped it in my gear, and said to the doctors and custodians running around me, "Hey, there's something wrong, I can't move it again."

I tried to find some hope for myself. I told myself that maybe it was just the fact that I hadn't played in a long time and my body needed to get used to the strain again. After the surgeries, I have various scars around my spine, something could have swollen and it will get better with time... I tried to explain to myself that I could still play.

I knew very well that this was final. I can't do it anymore.

^^^^^^^^^^

Yeah, my nose has grown a little.

Our year played the U18 World Championships in Pilsen, we finished fourth, but from a personal point of view, I really took off. Ondra Pavelec and I made it to the all-star tournament, two months before the NHL draft, it worked out great. Then Phoenix took me in the first round. Everything seemed to be working out for me at the beginning of my adulthood, and I thought so myself at the time.

From the age of seventeen I played for Budějice A's, which meant only the first league during the NHL lockout, but I had guys like Venca Prospal, Radek Dvořák, Andrew Ference, Basa Neckář, Eda Turek, Kondor Rob, Petr Sailer and Belma Bělohlav next to me. A team like thunder, I remember it like it was yesterday. And me with a basket on my helmet. Coach Pepa Jandač wanted me even after I was promoted to the Extraliga, so unlike my teammate and friend from the youth, David Kuchejda, I didn't go to Canada to the juniors. Manager Látal convinced me to stay, that my place was solid.

Okay. First round draft pick, a spot in the playoffs... I'm definitely going to play no matter what, because I'm a star.

Well, I guess I didn't prepare as well as I should have. And it was my fault, because that's exactly how I felt about everything at the time. What would anyone want from me? They can be glad I didn't blow them off.

But the reality was a little different.

In the opening game of the league in Kladno, we and other young players were not on the ice for the first period. I remember sitting there and not understanding why. Two substitutions in the third period, when I was frozen and didn't do anything - that's what my extra league debut looked like. The next twenty or so rounds were in a similar vein.

I felt I couldn't go on like this. At the 20s championship in Canada in December, we had already decided that I would stay there. Rather than continue to get four minutes a game, I wanted to play somewhere proper, and after talking with Phoenix, we chose Omaha in the American youth competition. Not that I wasn't doing well there, but that year was weird. Worst year of my career, I'm not afraid to say. By the time I was supposed to stomp in after the draft, I either wasn't playing or I was looking.

If it helped anything, it was getting my head straight about what I wanted. And rather than be considered a champion among my peers for wanting to play in the adult league anymore, I went to junior for the next season after all, in Red Deer. There, under a great coach, Brent Sutter, I was able to do my best. When I left at Christmas for my second 20s, I was leading the scoring competition.

Then it turned out I was very lucky for the situation I found myself in.

In my early days, I compared myself a lot to Jakub Kindl. He was drafted two spots after me, but while he was taken by Detroit, a flashy team full of veterans, Phoenix was last and Coach Gretzky made the drastic decision to dump the old guys and start building a new team. While Kuba, a standout player, waited four years on the farm for his chance, I jumped right into the NHL from the first possible moment after junior, scored the game-winning goal on my debut, and as long as I was healthy, I never dropped out of the lineup again in my entire career.

But that's just it... as long as I was healthy.

After my first season in the NHL, when I was doing well, scoring points, playing power play and shorthanded, David Krejci and I were the two young guys who got a chance at the national team at the World Championships. Quebec 2008. At twenty-one I was rooming with Mara Zidlicky, and even though I didn't play much towards the end, I devoured every moment next to guys like Patrik Elias or Tomas Kaberle.

During the tournament I also told Professor Pavel Kolář, who was there with us, that my back and leg were starting to sting. He just touched me and said, "It's the plates." He advised me on what I needed to do so that it wouldn't limit me in the future, but I didn't address it at the time.

What could possibly happen, right? I mean, I'm a young kid. It'll be fine.

But a month after the championship, I started training and it just kept getting worse. The twinge in my leg got worse and worse, to the point where I couldn't even bend over or get out of bed. So I called Phoenix to find out what the problem was, and they told me to come right away.

I arrived on the thirteenth of July, and by the fifteenth I was being operated on in Los Angeles. Herniated discs.

The doctor clearly described to me afterwards that because of my taller stature, my back was under a lot of strain. I skate with my back bent, and I've been hitting my hips in front of the gate. You need to exercise especially the middle of the body. Abdominals, back, to strengthen the problem area...

And I thought: "Yeah, good. I've got it fixed, it's fine now."

I started doing some exercises, but not enough. My main concern was to get myself right in time for the start of the season, which I actually did. A month and a half after the surgery, I was back to full strength. When I think back on it, I absolutely cannot understand how I did it. A young body recovers incredibly fast.

I wish I'd taken better care of it then.

I didn't need to work out at all in the Czech Republic or later in the Canadian juniors, where I came in a year older than most of the players in the league. I was naturally big and strong compared to the others, and my physique made me dominate on the ice. How to play as much as possible, score goals and pass the puck - that's all I cared about.

I wasn't taught to go to the gym during the season, I felt like it was only needed in the summer to put on muscle.

Then, after I came to the NHL, I heard from Wayne Gretzky that he wanted me to make it difficult for the opponents because of my height. He was putting me in important situations, playing against the opponents' best players, so I sensed that this was going to be my role and I tried to fulfill it as best as I could. It involved a lot of body-on-body battles with the big strong guys that abounded in the Western Conference and especially in our Pacific Division at the time. We cut it with Getzlaf and Perry from Anaheim, Kopitar and other heavyweights from Los Angeles, Thornton and Marleau from San Jose. Every game was brutal meat, after all, hockey back then was still quite different from the faster hockey of today.

To keep my job, I had to do it. I came out of juniors with the image of a skilled, productive player, but at the NHL level I was up against guys even more talented than I was. They could come up with more on the ice and I had to adapt. I always wanted to be a goal scorer, but it quickly clicked that now I wasn't going to be a corner man. I had to play the way I was asked to play. It was the only thing that allowed me to keep my place and continue to develop. I was gaining more and more confidence on the ice, and even all the stars whose blood I drank were starting to remember me.

You could tell that because over time, the angry yelling developed into a kind of mutual respect. "What's up, kid, let's have a fight? I don't really feel like it, but if you want to, come on..." used to say Ryan Getzlaf on the bullpen a lot. Joe Thornton was making music again, wondering what the hell that hoof is still doing out there. That he hoped he wouldn't have to play against me anymore.

I know from Kuba Kindl, who played with him in Detroit, that Pavel Datsyuk didn't like playing against me either. I find him an incredibly skilled and unpredictable opponent. He wasn't big in stature, nor was he an excellent speedster or skater, but he seemed to be moving a second ahead of where the game was going. It was as if he always knew where someone was going to baffle him, and he would make a counter move, put his shoulder in front of you, which you would bounce off of, and he would just turn and keep going. He was unbelievable at that. He was the worst defender of them all.

At the same time, knowing what I knew from Kindi, I tried to outsmart him once. I decided to put a wedge between his legs...

A moment of suspense.

Of course he read it to me. He snapped the puck, missed me, and scored us a goal. I remember my teammate Radim Vrbata sitting down on the bench, looking at me and talking so nicely: "Well, that was decent. Please don't ever do that again."

I listened to him.

All these top players were subject to not missing a step in any innings against them. If you gave them a one-meter lead, if you let up for a second thinking you couldn't do it anymore, or maybe you underestimated the situation, they were able to take advantage of it. It resulted in a chance or a goal. So I had to be on their ass all the time. Unpleasant to be known, and sometimes a bit sneaky. That was part of my job, to take key players out of the opposition's concentration at all costs. When the opportunity arose to go toe-to-toe with them, I had to take it. Make it clear to them that I was watching them. Axes through the reins, a light hold on the bullpen when I lost it, I used it all to get these guys to notice me more than the game itself.

After the whistle blows at the net, somebody hits you, you swing your stick at them and it's off to the boil. I understand they didn't like me.

At the same time, because I wasn't just an outright defensive player, I was getting myself into offensive situations and going in front of their net again. They didn't spare me all the more. Whether it was themselves or their teammates on defense. They were eating up what I was doing. I was getting axed, tackled, and punched in the face when I was pushed over the goal line.

And a lot of shots to the back.

Later I got a special hip protector, but that didn't help either. You'd get some terrible punches.

It was all my fault, my convenience, that I didn't focus on it in my preparation. I didn't maintain myself during the season. I was happy to be playing, and I was playing a lot. That was all I cared about.

And most importantly, for the first few years after the surgery, nothing really hurt. I had no reason to doubt that everything would be fine.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

They said I was Gretzky's kid. He said he made everything so easy for me and I got everything for free.

Radim Vrbata and Zbynia Michálek made fun of me at every possible moment in my early days. Written like that, it sounds ordinary, but it was a constant innuendo, they treated me terribly. We had a lot of laughs together.

The fact is, I got really lucky with Gretzky. I mean, that's how the greatest hockey player in history liked me. A guy who also had an exceptional feel as a coach when it came to his approach to players. He didn't like to be tied down by being asked to do things he didn't own, things he didn't know how to do. Gretzky had an amazing ability to read what someone was good at and what to expect from them. He then treated individuals in game situations accordingly.

And if you imagine that he had an aura about him, as the greatest legend of them all, then... Yeah, he did. Exactly. Nobody, especially me when I was young, dared to do anything to him. When he walked into the room, we all just automatically went quiet. Even the old guys had respect for him, but it wasn't until about a year and a half later that I dared to take his cards that I collected as a kid to see if he'd sign them for me.

He also had a sense of humour. When I missed the puck in front of an empty net against Toronto, he brought a goalie stick into the booth and told me that I could use it next time. Or once, when I completed a hat trick at the beginning of the second period, he told me in the bench that he scored the most five goals in a game and I would surely beat him.

Of course, I didn't score any more that day.

I couldn't have asked for a better coach for my start in the NHL. And then when Dave Tippett replaced him, so did the team results. Dave knew me well because he had previously managed Dallas, where I always defended their star, Modano. He put us together with Vrbic, and then when Ray Whitney came in, he put us together with him. We played two full seasons with that lineup, virtually unchanged. I had a great time playing with them, the guys made a lot of points each and in our second year together we made it to the Conference Finals in the Stanley Cup. While Wayne's coaching was based on everyone getting their own way on the ice, Dave was a master at breaking down and explaining every little detail of the game on video. We knew what to do after a faceoff in each zone, what to do if we lost it, what to do if we won it. If it was left or right. I was really comfortable with that because we stuck to it as a team, we had something to rely on on the ice in every situation. That was the basis of our success.

Thanks to Dave and his preparation, I got a chance to try playoff hockey, which is really something else. Just like they say.

Before the first ever series we played, our captain Shane Doan showed me a video. It was from back in the old days, the early days of the NHL in Phoenix. Some guy, I can't remember his name, came off the bench. He knocked one guy down, then another, then a third, then a fourth... And he went to make a change.

"This is playoff hockey, this is what I want to see from you," Shane tells me.

I laughed, "I'm so curious," but it really looked like it. It's like a thunderstorm, both teams and the people in the stands are pumped up. Beautiful... I loved playing this.

I just started to feel my back again sometime that year we played LA for the finals.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It went the same way every time.

My butt muscles started to sting. Then gradually my left leg tingled on the back of my thigh, more and more, until it went to my calf and foot. It made itself known for a while, then it became unbearable and eventually I couldn't feel my leg at all. Maybe on the plane after the games. When I got up, it was like a thunderclap, just shuffling.

I often got asked if it hurt when I collided with someone or got hit. But no, that wasn't the problem.

All the trouble was coming from the discs. As they began to press on the nerve that runs down the back of the leg to the heel, as they irritated it, there was an unpleasant sensation followed by pain. Even today, when I sit in one position for long periods of time, I'm still reminded of them.

Two years after the first operation I had peace, but gradually it started to come back. Not much at first, the left side of my body from the waist down was just kind of stiff all of a sudden, but week after week, month after month everything just got worse. The packed NHL schedule, the fly-overs, the little sleep after games, the twisted airplane seating, a different bed in every hotel... One piece to the next pieced together into a mosaic of pain.

A mosaic that, five years after the first surgery, had become so clogged that I had to go under the knife a second time. It got to the point where I couldn't even get in the car after a game. My left leg didn't feel like it wasn't mine.

I always managed to get through the fight somehow, I got pills and later injections for the pain and I was fine. But then when I got cold, everything was back and worse.

Gradually, I started exercising a lot more, just to avoid a second operation. I used to go to the stadium ahead of my teammates for that. Even three hours before the game. It took me an hour and a half just to get my body working. First I went into the hot tub to warm up, then I did a series of warm-up exercises, then a lap, then I got a massage, stretched - and only then did the guys start arriving.

But my condition was getting worse anyway.

It got to the point where one season I didn't even go to training anymore. Vrbic and Michym joked that they should cut my money because I wasn't doing anything, just playing games. But bouncing off those jokes, those were the only times I felt like laughing. I used to be in so much pain...

Dave was able to accommodate me, which I appreciated. I was already assistant captain that year, I had his trust, plus he knew he needed me in the games. He told me, "I'll leave it up to you, you have to tell me. Only you know how you feel. Whenever you need time off, I'm happy to give it to you. Just be ready for the game."

The result was that I hadn't been on the ice for three quarters of the season except for a game. While the guys were practicing, I was in the locker room doing rehab. I was putting myself in a condition that would allow me to play again next time.

At first it was good because I was able to rest and the pace of the NHL game itself kept me in shape, but over time I started to notice that others were physically better because they were on the ice every day. Even the half hour that is often spent training in the NHL will ultimately make a difference in such a long time.

I struggled with it for a while like that. I didn't know what to do. I saw that I was missing practices with the team, but I simply couldn't go to them because I was in pain. One time I was so down I couldn't even play, so Dave gave me a week off completely, no practices or games. At times like that I was gradually getting back to normal, but as soon as I started playing again, all the pain was back. But the whole thing just led to me having to have a second surgery in February 2015 anyway. After almost three years of only being able to play a game on pills or injections.

It became routine. They were pounding me with epidural and toradol, drugs that are used in hospitals, completely automatically.

I stumbled out of the car and said, "This sucks, I don't know if I'm gonna make it tonight. And the doctor says, "Take the pill and see." He always put the responsibility for the decision on me.

Of course, it always worked. I'd get my **** together in the warm-up, and then I wouldn't get sloppy. Of course I wanted to play then. At the time, I could do it. But that night I was writhing around in crazy pain, and before long it was gone and my back came back together.

In retrospect, it doesn't seem fair. Sure, the club pays me to do a job for them in games, so it's clear they want to get the best out of me. But almost three years of match after match under the bluffers? I don't need a medical degree to imagine the effect it must have on the body.

I wasn't addicted to anything, I never felt the need to take painkillers at home, but still...

Is it worth it to me? Is there a point to all this? Will it ever get better?


How many times have I asked myself these questions during that time. I never really got the answers. It was always that the team was counting on me. That I was a professional hockey player, under contract for big money, and expected to play. The older I got, the more and more that went through my head. Doubt, and at the same time, a reluctance to give anything up.

Maybe if I was a player on the edge of the lineup, someone who wasn't being looked at, I would have acted differently. I would have made easier decisions. But I always just barely slid into the skates despite all these difficulties - and then played all the important situations. Sometimes eighteen, sometimes twenty minutes a game. What a lot of hockey players would give for that kind of space.

That's why I always told myself I'd stick it out. I'm not giving this up willingly.

At the beginning of the 2016-17 season, I was just fine. It was a good fit for me at the World Cup, where I had a great line with Ondra Palatů and Milan Michalek. It was only three games, but a hockey player can tell right away if he is doing well or not.

My back didn't hurt, and after the second operation I kept practicing and maintaining myself.

I had a good season from a personal point of view and my contract was coming to an end. Coach Tippett and the new general manager, Chayka, came to me at training camp and said they would like to sign me before play started.

I said, "Great. We'll give it two or three more years and then we'll see what my health allows. I'd love to spend my whole career with one club. It'd be nice.

We agreed on the money and the length of the contract, the offer was sent to my agent and... And nothing happened.

Guys from other teams told me it was amateurism on the part of the club. I never found out why it all stuck, whether it was the inexperience of young Chayka or whether it was some kind of a setup from the beginning. I just kept calling the agent to tell him what was going on, that the season was starting, and he didn't get it. That no one was answering his phone. It went on like that for months. Chayka was avoiding me, I didn't even get a chance to talk to him, and the coach came to me at Christmas and said I was playing great and I was putting pressure on the front office to sign me. That I clearly belong to the club, I'm an important player.

But still nobody's talked to me or my agent.

As the transfer deadline approached, I vowed to stop talking about it because I would go crazy. Plus, they told me during January that they were really finally going to sign me though.

I was traded to Minnesota in February.

It was all weird, weird. I don't know if there was anything more to it. But I guess it was meant to be. At least I got to see another team, another city. Got to see what the NHL looks like from a different perspective.

I didn't have any problems with my back that year, I enjoyed hockey and for the first and last time in my career I scored 20 goals in the regular season. When I was choosing where to continue as a free agent in the summer, I had some interesting options: San Jose, Buffalo and Dallas. All on pretty much the same terms. I chose Dallas because I felt I had the best chance for team success there, and I could see a clear position in the lineup.

I was thirty years old, I knew what the NHL was all about, and I was looking forward to joining a strong team. The worst was behind me, now I would start to capitalize on what I had learned in the next phase of my career, I told myself.

But it didn't go exactly as planned...

I injured my ankle in camp, and when I came back, the old familiar back problems started again during the autumn. It got so bad that I had to have a third surgery a month before the end of the regular season. I didn't come back until the beginning of December.

First, second, third... I started missing games again. Until the Islanders came to town the day before Christmas.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

went home from the rink, there was no point in doing anything in the evening. Then on Christmas morning I went to the CT scanner, where the doctor discovered that something was still pressing on my nerve.

To this day, no one could tell me if it had been operated on wrong or if something had moved there again.

All I've heard is that there are two possibilities. One: I'd have to have another surgery, my fourth. They'd open me up again, front and back. They'd clean the affected area, and then I'd have another long recovery.

Option two: Let it go and see. It might get better, or it might not.

The third surgery alone was borderline. Because the same doctor operated on me in all cases, he told me afterwards that if the problems returned, he didn't recommend that I play anymore. Something could go really wrong. After all, they're drilling around your spinal cord, in your spine.

The first two times, they removed a piece of disc that was pressing on a nerve with a laser. The risk wasn't really that great there. But in the last surgery, they've already replaced the entire disc with a titanium disc and screwed two vertebrae together. There were already complications. I knew about Henrik Zetterberg, a great Swedish hockey player who had the same operation two years before me. He didn't even try to continue his career, said he couldn't go on, and quit. That made me a little nervous.

That's why it took me about ten months before I was able to return to the games. Ten months of really careful rehabilitation and training, whatever it took. Ten months, a significant part of which I couldn't even play with the kids properly, lest I make too violent a move.

And then suddenly there was pain again. The old familiar pain.

I took the CT scan results to several other doctors in the field and asked them the same question: if I have another surgery, can you guarantee I'll be able to function? That I can still play?

None of them could put it that way.

It might help, but... Digging into one spot in the spine four times, one scar piling on top of another, no wound ever completely healing. No one can guarantee that.

When I heard this from the last doctor I saw in New York, I had a definite breakthrough.

I knew it was really over.

Going into another surgery knowing it was a risk? And how will my body react when I'm done with hockey? Would I be restricted in any way?

These questions kept scrambling around in my head. I looked back at my contract, which still had two years left on it. I looked back at the guys on the team who had put their trust in me to help them. I looked back on knowing that I still had it in me. That even after three surgeries and almost a year without hockey, I could still play on a loaded team and make a difference. And sure, I was looking back at the money I was making as an experienced NHL player. It's what I and my family have today. But to want to make more and more money at any cost and risk my health and my everyday life for it? No, health doesn't buy you anything.

After my third surgery, I still wanted to play so my kids could see me in the NHL. Especially my older son was starting to see the hockey connection and he enjoyed watching me. I'm sorry I didn't make it through the two years left on my contract in Dallas, so that my kids would remember me as an NHL player. But on the other hand, every time I think about it, I remember the pain I was in and how long I suffered.

I remember several doctors telling me in no uncertain terms that it just wasn't worth it anymore.

I remember before the third surgery I told myself that if the trouble came back I was done, I wasn't going to try it anymore. I had it set in my mind, it was only when the moment actually came that I had to reaffirm my previous decision.

I remember at one point realizing that I was just fed up with it all.

I appreciate the fact that I can function as a normal person today. Without the daily physical strain of a professional hockey player, it is enough for my body to work out a few times a week, and then nothing limits me anymore. I can go on the ice with a young guy who is starting to develop in hockey, I can be there for him at this important time. I can shoot with him, play with him, give him advice. I continue to play hockey for fun on a recreational level, I'll slide in with the guys, have a beer with them.

I'm not sitting in a chair thinking I can't walk. From that standpoint, I definitely ended my career on time.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Sometimes I ask myself what really dominates my memories of all those years in the NHL.

Joy?

Pain?

Honestly, it's about half and half. At the same time, the more time that passes, the more I remember the good things. I feel proud that I was able to play in the NHL for twelve years, and I had an important role in my teams the whole time. There aren't that many Czechs who can say that.

I take the pain as a toll for all this.

Everyone has a different way of playing hockey. You won't find a hockey player who went through everything fine, played for twenty years, made money and then goodbye. It cost everybody something. From a health standpoint, from a family situation, from a psychological standpoint... Someone has to work their way through the farm system, they're looking for a place in the NHL for a long time. I came in and I played on the spot. I played a lot. And that's what I had to pay for the privilege.

In the time around the surgeries, before and after, I suffered. I told myself I'd never get on the ice again, but once the wounds heal, you start to enjoy what you've been doing since you were a kid. Hockey, being with your teammates. It outweighs the pain in the moment, even though to some extent I was experiencing real suffering.

Was it worth it? At some point, shouldn't I have maybe chosen an easier path in hockey life and left the demanding NHL for Russia or somewhere even lower?

No, I'm sure I did the right thing in that regard.

Maybe I'll have some lasting effects, maybe I'll be somehow limited in my older age because of what I've done and had done to my body, but I've fulfilled the dream of maybe every little kid who starts playing hockey. I played in the NHL, I played for the national team in the Olympics and the World Championships. I'm sorry I never achieved team success, I don't have a medal or trophy from any event at home, but... But you can't always control that in a team sport. I'm happy with my career. Despite my back problems, I enjoyed my years in the NHL and I left something behind, I wasn't just in the numbers.

I was able to get where I wanted to go. I provided for my family financially. And the fact that I struggled for a while is part of the story.

Would it have been different if I'd taken better care of my body when I was younger? Sure, it could be. Although my doctor told me that my problems were more likely to be congenital, at the same time, the main thing he really laid on my heart after my first surgery at the age of twenty-one was that I would now have to exercise every day to strengthen my back.

I would sit in front of him and say "yeah yeah" while adding to myself: "Take it easy. You've got me off now, so I'll be fine."

I didn't do everything I could in my early days to prevent my problems. I certainly didn't. We can talk about the fact that maybe it would have made a difference if someone had told me at eighteen that, especially with my height, I needed to take better care of myself, needed to strengthen my midsection more than chase my shoulders and strong legs. Maybe then my career would have looked different. Maybe genetics would have caught up with me anyway, I would have had to have some surgery, but I definitely wouldn't have suffered the pain as much.

But on the other hand - even if someone was pushing me at 18, would I have listened to them?

I don't know.

I can't say that I wouldn't hear around me how I need to train hard, take care of my body or watch my diet. I mean, even our coaches were telling us to stretch, it's just that most of us kind of generally assumed it was useless.

I got drafted in the first round, what does anyone want me to do any stretching? You want me to go for a lap? Who's gonna tell me what to do?

Guys have a mind of their own at that age, and I was no different.

On the other hand, anyone who understood the importance of proper weight training and recovery early on could be sure that it gradually showed in his career.

So I can take it as my fault that I spent half of my time in the NHL in pain and often had to fight with my own body first, fool it before I could fight with the other team. Maybe I'd still be playing at the highest level now if I'd realized sooner that there is a component of hockey life that, while it seems unnecessary and annoying when you're young, is just as important as the ability to skate fast and shoot accurately.

It's not in my nature to impose myself anywhere, but if someone comes to me today and wants advice, I'll tell them absolutely everything I've learned. I'll tell him everything I've experienced and how every young hockey player should take care of his body, what kind of lifestyle he should follow, how he should exercise.

That he needs to invest in his body as much as he can. To work out properly and sufficiently. Know what to eat and when to eat it. To get enough rest. There is only one health, and no one has a body other than his own. For an athlete, it's his tool, so he has to take care of it. If someone hits your knee and tears a ligament, there's nothing you can do about it. But how you prepare for the long-term stress is up to you.

Parents should also know how to guide their children when their top sports career is at stake. If they have the means to do so, it's always a good idea to invest in working with specialists in all of the aforementioned areas because it will simply pay off. It will give young athletes the best possible starting point. And then as a parent, I want to be able to say that I did everything I could to help my child achieve their dream. To be able to see how he stacks up against the top competition without having to writhe in pain getting out of bed, like Hanzal had to do at one point.

If my story helps anyone else realize this and work on their health, what I went through made sense.

Tomas
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Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews

Post by Tomas »

(from Czech "Without Cliches" website. Very long story. No link to PIttsburgh - just a really cool personal story)

Ondrej Palat: "Get F%^&#$g Pissed Off!"


Czech original with some cool pics:

https://www.bezfrazi.cz/pribehy/ondrej-palat/naser-se


or very good deep-learning translation through DEEPL.COM of the full article:
**** you!
Ondřej Palát ice hockey


"Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light..."

With these words the lyrics of the American national anthem begin. No need to translate them, I don't see any deeper meaning in them. Yet I know them by heart. Because every time I hear them, I get a chill down my spine.

I listen to the American national anthem on the blue line before the start of every NHL game. I've played seven seasons in the best hockey league in the world, but I still can't believe it.

So during the anthem, I just look around, take a deep breath and scan the crowded stands of all those modern arenas. I often catch myself asking myself: "Dude, Paly, what are you even doing here?"

Playing in the NHL is not a given for me, even after all these years.

I'm always thinking, "Dude, there's 20,000 people watching us. All these stars around. Even you. To the kid from Frýdek-Místek who a few years ago was crying on his mother's shoulder at the airport in Prague that he didn't want to go to America to play hockey."

It's always just a brief moment during which time stops for me. In that moment, all those memories of my childhood flash through my mind, when my parents saved every penny for my dreams and sacrificed all their time for it, along with my sister Misha.

Memories of the difficult moments in the juniors, when I was exhausted and vomited into the basket on the bench after practice and told myself that I had no chance here. The feeling of being the unwanted kid that no one talked to at Tampa's first training camp.

And the time I yelled out loud to myself one day during a game, "**** you and show everyone you're the best!"

That's when everything in my hockey life turned upside down.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

I grew up in a normal Czech family. We didn't have deep pockets, but we couldn't jump around either. More or less until I was fifteen I had to play hockey with just old wooden sticks. I didn't see my first graphite sticks until my junior year after I transferred to Vítkovice. I was looking at them like a fool then.

Hockey was always retro heavy in my town.

Then when I first came to a big club at the age of 15 with my old gear, I felt downright embarrassed in front of the others. I never had anything new in my childhood, and we were really unlucky in that respect. When my parents saved up for my first composite CCM, my opponents broke it in the second game. I cried while my dad was on his knee in the garage trying to weld it.

I've also always had my dream white Nike skates. The same ones Wayne Gretzky used to wear in his New York Rangers jersey. I really wanted them, but it was no fun to get them back then. My dad saved up for them for months before Santa gave them to me for Christmas. It was one of the best presents I ever got as a kid.

I soon lost them.

I was in the fifth grade then, and it seems like yesterday. We were returning from a match in Kopřivnice and on the way home, still driving our old 100 Gliwice, we stopped at Tesco to do some shopping. My kit bag didn't fit in the boot under the front bonnet, so I had it next to me in the back seat. We could only be in the shop for half an hour at most, and when we got back to the car, the bag was gone.

Normally, someone had stolen it while we were shopping. From the parking lot of the biggest store in town. In broad daylight.

We were shocked the window wasn't even broken. I still don't understand how that guy got in. Anyway, he got us into a lot of trouble. It was a total massacre for the whole family, especially me. My parents were penniless at the time and I had nothing to play in. What now?

Mr. Nogol saved us. He was an old gentleman who was the custodian of the arena in Frýdek-Místek at that time. Unfortunately, he's dead now, but he did everything for me then. Probably I owe it to him today that some thug, whom nobody ever found, didn't end my career. Mr. Nogola managed to put together a complete hockey team. He gave us absolutely terrible equipment and horrible old hockey skates for free. I played the next two seasons in that. There was no other way to do it then.

You'll probably laugh at me and this must sound crazy, but I've been afraid to leave my car in the parking lot ever since. I really have a total block in my head that something's going to happen again. That's when I cried for three days straight. I just loved those skates that were in the bag. I loved them so much I used to sleep with them in my bed. And then somebody stole them from me.

That memory has stayed with me all my life and partly illustrates my character. Perhaps you've seen it in your conversations with me. I'm more of an introvert. A person who protects her own privacy and doesn't let strangers in.

I don't remember my parents ever telling me that I'd play in the NHL or at least the NHL one day. That idea alone would sound downright ridiculous in light of all the circumstances described above. I only played hockey because I wanted to and because I enjoyed it so much from a young age. I lived it.

At the family cottage outside the city, I used to shoot at the goal from morning till night and then in the summer I used to dress up like a fool every day at home. The summer break was absolutely unbearable. Every time they melted the ice after the end of the season in the old and now long demolished hall in Frýdek, I used to shed tears. I just absolutely loved hockey. There were posters of Datsyuk, Jagr and Hasek hanging above the bunk bed I shared with my sister in the children's room at home. Those were probably my biggest childhood role models. I played against the first two, and that actually made something come true that I hadn't imagined for a long time.

Later, of course, I admired other hockey players. In the makeshift gym my dad built in the basement of our cottage, I put up pictures of Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. I worked out there every summer as a junior, lifting weights and watching them. By sheer coincidence and happenstance, it was Crosby who stood on the ice in my NHL debut as my opponent.

It helped me a lot in my career that I started in a small club. Thanks to that, I could always play two years up from the first grade. I'm class of 1991, but I've been playing with eighty-niners the whole time. I guess I could have played with my year group, stood out there and had a million points. It's just that I was playing against stronger and taller guys all the time, and I had to learn to be smarter on the ice. To keep up with them, that was all I had to do.

My dad's a hockey coach. He was still working as an electrician at the time and he also managed the teams I was going through in Frýdek-Místek for a couple of years. Even though it was very hard for me many times, he always told me, "Just get used to it, hockey is a tough sport."

It seemed normal to me.

I only got on the ice with my peers at the end of the season when they needed help or at Christmas tournaments. Those guys were great, they always welcomed me and we won those games. It was a really great time.

From a young age, I was also very precise in training. While my dad was teaching me to be tough, my mom was adding value with her incredible serve. She never missed a single game in the stands if she could. She filmed every one of my substitutions on an old camera, so even as a little kid I could look back on my matches at home and think about what I could have done better in a given situation. And I had a lot of fun thinking about it.

Even later, after I moved to Vítkovice, where I earned my first money as a junior, about two thousand crowns a month, hockey was no fun for our family. Time-wise and financially, because the gas for the daily commute to Ostrava cost a lot of money. I used to go with another friend and our parents took turns driving us. We would stand on the sidewalk by the roundabout behind Tesco and wait to see who would pick us up this time. Now and then, of course, we had to travel by bus or train too. But Mum is a teacher and she tried to accommodate us as much as she could. Many times she even took her notebooks with her and corrected the kids' papers on the steering wheel while waiting outside the hall for our practice to end.

Ondřej Palát, ice hockey

These are all things that you only realise over time. What parents are willing to sacrifice for their children, who take it for granted. They could have put us on a bike and sent us to soccer practice outside the city in the countryside, they wouldn't have had to worry about anything. They'd have peace from us and no one could blame them. But they were there for us. Although it was often not easy for them, my sister and I always got what we wanted most in the end.

I'm so grateful to them for that.

And I hope that's why I've stayed sane to this day.

From a young age, even with more modest circumstances at home, we were brought up to be humble and keep our feet on the ground. I'll never play the star. It's my basic credo in life. I pride myself on it and I try to behave accordingly in public. I'm not entirely comfortable posing for the cameras, I don't feel natural even when I'm being interviewed by the media. That's probably why relatively few people recognize me on the street and I'm perfectly comfortable with it. I have no desire to be known and admired. I like my peace and freedom.

I still want to be just that guy from Frýdek-Místek.

So I can't even imagine flying private jets, even though I could probably afford it. I save my money or spend it in a completely different way. I still love rolls and pate for dinner, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy myself. You know I also like to go to expensive restaurants and indulge in vacations we never dreamed of before.

Ondřej Palát, ice hockey

It never occurred to me until I was fifteen that I could play hockey for a living and have such a good time. Actually, I couldn't even think about it. School was the absolute priority in our family. I went to hockey class in primary school, but after that I had to go to high school. I didn't pass the state entrance exam, so I at least went to private school.

I first started thinking about hockey being my job in Vítkovice. We used to have practice early in the morning before school, so I always left the booth when the extra-league team took the ice. Among those guys were guys like Burger, Ujcik or Malik. An unbelievable team that made it to the finals twice in a row. I always stopped at the rim behind the glass, watched their smiles at practice or the bag, and dreamed how beautiful it would be if I could one day make a living doing what I enjoy most in life.

Even though I already perceived that these guys weren't doing badly, I didn't care about the money. And the thought of the NHL? That was complete nonsense. The only time I came into contact with it was on the weekend, when the TV was on in the morning. I watched it with my mouth open and thought it was impossible.

My goal was the league.

That's as far as I could see.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

I remember the day I first entered an NHL game minute by minute exactly.

The farm team and I were bussed in for a two-day trip that included only one game. Coach told us not to wear jackets at all because of that. That we were going in team shorts. But that evening, Steve Yzerman, then Tampa Bay's general manager, called me at the hotel to tell me that the next day's game was in nearby Pittsburgh and the Lightning needed me. A limo was on its way to pick me up.

I was shaken like a leaf. I was a huge stressor at the time. I've been like that since I was a kid, I still remember the terror of being called out by teachers and having to go in front of the board and say something. I felt the same way then. The nervousness came before I could hang up the phone. It just popped into my head: I don't have a suit!

I'm supposed to go to my first NHL game in a shorts suit?

Steve Yzerman, like a good man, said on the phone that it was okay.

But I did. I felt terrible. Everyone in the Tampa booth would have laughed at me.

I immediately headed to the mall in a completely crazy town, knowing I didn't have much money in my account. So instead of going to Hugo Boss, I headed to a thrift store, where, by sheer coincidence, one of my jackets fit. I continued to be stressed, but at least I was somewhat comforted by the knowledge that I wouldn't be going to my NHL debut as the biggest bum.

Ondřej Palát, ice hockey

The limo dropped me off in front of the hotel, where I met Alex Killorn in my room. Today, he's my longtime teammate and a very important player for Tampa. But back then, he was a kid who had been in the NHL just a few days longer than me. And so we both stood there in mute amazement, looking around to see if it was true.

I only made it to one practice with the team before my big day came. Of course, then-captain Vincent Lecavalier, a club legend, booed me in the warm-up before the game. As is customary, he sent me on a ride that every rookie in the NHL goes through. In the tunnel, he told me I had to go on the ice first and lead my teammates. While the whole team stayed behind me, I skated around the ice of the Pittsburgh arena by myself and the fans there stared at what a fool he was.

But then I experienced a feeling in the game that I was familiar with at the time from similar crisis situations. I didn't feel tired at all. I was flying back and forth on the ice, made a couple of substitutions against Sidney Crosby, and even scored my first point. It was a crazy pass. I was looking for Nate Thompson, but the puck bounced off one of the sticks, hit Tom Pyatt in the nose, and then bounced off him into the net.

Who cares today?

That goal was ugly. But I, a kid from Frýdek-Místek, didn't care. I had my first NHL point and I got a puck as a souvenir, which I still have at home.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

I have great memories of Vitkovice. There was an incredible team there in our time. Mrazek and Vošvrda were in goal, guys like Adam Polášek, Roman Szturc, Ondra Šedivý or Honza Káňa were in the midfield. I was the youngest of them, but I was playing on the first two lines, scoring points and I felt I was playing good hockey.

I could have gone to America after my junior year. I was drafted by Seattle, but I was sixteen years old and barely 50 kilos. Physically, I wasn't ready for it, and my mother, as a teacher, gave me a very strict ban. I had to continue my studies in high school.

It was absolutely the right decision.

The following year we won the junior league with Vítkovice and I met my wife.

On the day we were returning with her parents from our first holiday together in Croatia, my agent called me in the car. I had been drafted by Drummondville of the Quebec league, and since I had gained some weight throughout the year, I had a clear idea. Regardless of the fact that Bara and I had been dating for six months and had had absolutely wonderful moments of infatuation, I said without hesitation: I'm in!

The euphoria was replaced, as is usual for me, by absolutely incredible stress. I was already freaking out three weeks before I left. I was nervous and missed everyone, even though I hadn't left yet. My mom was at home helping me pack my suitcase and I was in tears.

Ondřej Palát, ice hockey

Where on earth am I going, who am I going to stay with? And how am I going to get along with them?

My parents didn't help me much.

They cried too.

They drove me to Prague and two hours before my departure there was a grave silence between us at the airport. We just sat at the table and looked at each other. Nobody wanted to cry, but we all had tears in our eyes.

To this day, I still don't like goodbyes. And this one was really rough. I didn't speak any English, so I couldn't even fill out the questionnaire to enter Canada on the plane. It all came off on the spot. I was greeted at the airport by my host family, who were absolutely awesome to meet at first sight. A married couple with two kids. The girl was seven, the boy about nine. These two caparts became my best friends without a joke. They helped me in the beginning of my life abroad like no one else. I spent all my free time with them. We'd go to the pool or play video games. And thanks to that, I learned English in a month, so that I started to understand everyone around me quite well.

Ondřej Palát, ice hockeyI didn't have any Czech teammates in town, I was all alone. But the kids managed to keep me so busy that I didn't have time to feel homesick. My parents and my girlfriend and I Skyped every night and I started to feel good.

Hockey-wise, it was a massacre. There were sixty dudes ready for pre-season camp, who were pumped up and physically much more advanced at first glance, which I could tell after every practice.

It was called the mountain test. We simply rode lines at the end of practice.

Goal, blue, goal, red and so on. Anyone who didn't do everything in 50 seconds got a rest and had to do it again.

That test doesn't make any sense to me even today. Because if you don't pass it the first time, you'll never pass it again. I didn't get it right the first time until Christmas. The coaches choked me like that six times in a row on the ice. I hated it. At best, I was lying helpless on the ice, at worst I was vomiting over the rim into the basket.

I just wasn't physically up to it.

I barely made the team's third line, I had something like forty points for the season. I played a tough average, and still brought on my worst injury. All on purpose at a time when my parents first flew in to see me and we all wanted to enjoy those few days a year together. Right at the start of the first game, which my parents were watching from the stands, I blocked a cross from the blue with my mouth. Two teeth came out and my jaw was broken into thirty pieces.

I went into surgery, I still have two plates in my mouth and scars on my face that I will never get rid of. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror at the time. My mouth was swollen and wired, I was doped up on painkillers and couldn't eat or speak. My parents sat next to me like that for ten days before their plane home.

But that season was also the first time I started to realize that there were guys around me who would probably make it somewhere someday. We used to have a guy named Sean Couturier, who's now a star with the Philadelphia Flyers. He was only 16, but he had scouts and reporters coming to see him. It was all about him, and for the first time, I realized that if I could just hang out here, I could probably get somewhere.

Ondřej Palát, ice hockey

I believed that the second season would be great for me. I worked out at home in the gym with my dad over the summer, and he kept pounding on my head to be more confident. That was the biggest problem that was holding me back at the time.

Knowing I was more mature, stronger and faster, I started the season with five games. And they were just as miserable as all the ones before. I was sitting in the locker room at halftime, eyes downcast, when I suddenly yelled at myself in front of the entire locker room: "Get the **** out of here and be the best!"

My teammates were looking at me like I was an dadhole.

I scored two goals in that game.

That's when my career took off towards the NHL, because everything has been going well since then. The coaches put me on the first line with Couturier. I had 96 points that season and an unbelievable streak of scoring three hat tricks in a row. The total turnaround and incredible performances came only because I let go of others and started to trust myself. I still say those words to myself before every game.

"**** you. And be the best."

Because that's when all those scouts started coming to watch me. because some guy named Palat found faith in himself and started to stand out on the ice.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

But the road to the NHL was still complicated.

In my first, severely mediocre season, I could hardly think that I would be picked in the draft. And in the second one, when I was already dominating the ice, the World Twenty20 Championship didn't work out at all.

I came to the championship slightly injured and sick. From a purely personal point of view, I played very badly and was very disappointed. I wanted to do my best, but from the first rotation it just wasn't me.

My confidence was gone, like I left him in the minors. But my nature forced me to at least play my best for the team at that moment. The assistant coach at the time, Frantisek Musil, came up to me after the tournament and asked me how I played. I answered him honestly that I was a disappointment from my point of view. But he told me: "Don't be silly, I liked you. You played for the team. Keep it up."

But so what? That tournament was a draft, and scouts look at a forward for goals anyway. They opened up the championship stats and they couldn't find my name at the top.

So six months later I was watching the draft at home on the computer and I didn't believe it at all. Even my agent told me the chances were slim. The sixth round ended and I closed my laptop resignedly, because there was no point in waiting any longer. I went to bed.

Ondřej Palát, ice hockey Fifteen minutes later, Spalenka's agent called me to wake up. Tampa Bay picked me. Steve Yzerman read my name at the very end of the draft. I was selected 208th overall. There were only three other hockey players after me.

But the happiness of actually getting drafted was quickly replaced by the sobering realization that being drafted in the late seventh round didn't really mean anything. The organization simply had nothing to lose by the selection, which I saw for myself when I arrived at the first camp for young players. Everybody there looked at me like I was trash. There were guys who had gone through the first or second round. And then me. More or less a lost cause in the eyes of the guys I was supposed to compete with.

I had a good week, though. It was a lot of fun hockey, a lot of hard work, and I knew I gave it my all. And then out of the blue came an invitation to Tampa's main preseason camp.

At that time I had already agreed with my team that I would continue in the junior league. They held my spot for me and nobody thought I'd go to the farm. I took the minors for granted, too. But two weeks of main camp passed, the coaches started to fire their first players and I was still sitting in the booth alongside, in my eyes, absolute gods Steven Stamkos or Martin St. Louis.

This allowed me to go to the pre-tournament with the backup team. I knew I couldn't let this chance slip through my fingers. I made a vow to just fight for a spot on the farm. Among other things, I realized that for the first time in my life I had a chance to earn some money playing hockey.

I was playing for whether I would continue to get a hundred dollars a week in juniors or whether I would turn pro in the AHL and get a better American salary. It was really the only chance to start a full relationship with Barca, who at that time we couldn't afford to buy plane tickets to see each other regularly during the season.

Thirty of us went to that tournament in St. Johns, Canada. It was three preliminary games, after which the coaches had to ruthlessly cut one line from the team. I knew full well that I was fighting for a spot that three other players were vying for. I bit my tongue, I had to grab it at all costs.

I experienced the same feeling I had later in my first NHL game. My legs were moving like never before with every shift and I didn't feel any fatigue. I was hustling for the team, getting back on defense, putting up some points on top of that and being crazy confident. After the last game, I changed in the locker room and waited anxiously to see what would happen. I caught a glimpse of Julien BriseBois, now Tampa's general manager, talking one by one with the guys who were my opponents. Normally, he'd send them to the ECHL. And he kept me on the team.

"Congratulations, you're going to Norfolk," he shook my hand.

The situation took everybody by surprise. Ironically, no one seemed to have considered the possibility that I would be the seventh pick in the first year of the draft. Not even the club itself. And so I left for the AHL without a signed, or at least pre-negotiated, contract. That simply meant I didn't have the money to even have a place to live.

Luckily I met Jarda Janus, Radko Gudas and Richard Panik at the farm. Norfolk was a pleasant town in Virginia about forty miles from the ocean. Most of my teammates lived there, but our Czech-Slovak group decided to rent a house on the beach and commute to play hockey. I didn't have much say in it at the time. I lived with the guys on credit. They paid for everything for two months because I didn't have a dime. I didn't see my first money until November, and to this day everybody still makes fun of me for it.

Risha Panik and I watched the games from the stands for the first two months, we didn't fit in the lineup. After every training session we were adding unbelievable doses in the gym and wanted to grab our place. But it was like nobody cared. It happened that the team wouldn't even take us to away games, so while our teammates were away playing hockey, we would go out for beers in the evening.

But we still believed we could do it. That it would break. And we convinced each other that we had to work harder.

After Christmas, there were some changes in the team due to trades and we finally started to work our way through the lineup together. By January, Risha and I were even playing with Tyler Johnson on the first line. Everything started to work again. Our team pedaled the following months unbelievably. We won the whole league, and even went on a twenty-eight game winning streak. It's still the longest winning streak in the history of professional hockey.

A lot of players will tell you the AHL is hell. That even teammates are selfishly going against each other because they're fighting for those few first-team NHL spots. But we had an unbelievable time there. We had a lot of fun with the Czech and Slovak guys in the beach house. In the morning, we'd work out and then go surfing in the ocean after lunch. Eventually we started having parties on the beach by the house, where the whole team would gather. And believe me, we weren't afraid to do it - every two days we'd all chill until dawn.

I'm convinced that this made the team a group that pulled together and went out to win every game.

We didn't know anything else then.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

A very important teammate for my career was Martin St. Louis.

When I became a regular first-team player in Tampa, Steven Stamkos hit the bar and broke his leg. A key player on the team was out for practically the whole season, it was a real mess.

And it was Martin St. Louis, our elite center, who went up to Coach Cooper in person and said he wanted to play with me and Tyler Johnson. We both went places that morning, performance-wise. St. Louis talked to me all the time. At practice, after practice, during the game. It got on my nerves sometimes, but he was just a hockey stickler who wanted to improve everything and everybody.

I remember a moment in one game when I was leading the puck down the boards and he was right next to me. Nobody was pressuring us, we had time for everything. And I put a beautiful flip-flop on his stick. I could've passed it down the ice, but I threw it in the air. It landed a millimeter on his blade. I just heard it tap beautifully on his yellow stick, and he went to the bench with a smile on his face.

He yelled at me for three periods there.

"That was the last time you did anything like that!" He pissed me off, telling me not to play around and do stupid things like that when it wasn't necessary. He hit me so hard I still remember it. It was one of the most valuable pieces of advice.

I don't think I have any other. I'm not gonna talk about how hard you have to work. You know, on the farm, in Canadian juniors, or at preseason camp, the other 60 guys work just as hard, this is a given. You can't really plan your way to the NHL, you have to be very lucky. Not only in different moments and games, but also in the people you're around and the people you run into. Like Martin St. Louis standing up for you and pulling you up or meeting a coach who likes your style.

I've been lucky enough to have that. Coach John Cooper and I are basically copying our own careers. He coached me in the AHL and now he's my coach in the NHL. Sure, there were times when he milked me like a dog, but he was always fair and appreciative of my game. He's a coach who can get what he excels at out of everybody.

But most important of all are the people you have around you at home. And for me, besides my parents and my sister, that's undoubtedly my wife, Bára. I fell in love with her at first sight and never did anything stupid because of it.

When I first started in America, we talked on Skype for two or three hours a day. I was seven thousand miles away, but I was still in love up to my ears. I often told her to go out with her friends and have a nice evening, but instead she would go to part-time jobs to save money for a plane ticket to see me, and in the process she looked forward to seeing me at least on the monitor.

Ondřej Palát, ice hockey

She could've told me to go to hell. Look at me like a hockey stick and think, God knows what I'm doing in America. But she supported me from the beginning. We've been together since we were 17, even though we saw each other maybe three times in our first two years in junior. I can't imagine where else I'd find a girl this nice.

She's also the main reason I've never taken to the skies and stayed humble.

I still try to approach my training the same way. I too see how the players around me are getting faster and how I have to add more and more in training every year to keep up with it all. On the outside I may be too nice for a hockey player, but I have my dad's stubbornness. Just like he competes with himself even on vacation on the slopes to get as many miles in a day as possible, I come to the ice with the same desire to do the best job for my team.

Those are the basic drivers that really got me somewhere in the end.

They're the reason one unknown kid from Frýdek-Místek listens to the American anthem three times a week on the ice in front of packed stands.
Gaucho
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Location: shootzepucklefraude

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews

Post by Gaucho »

Tomas wrote: Thu Aug 19, 2021 9:40 pm (I am so incredibly impressed by @Gaucho countrymen behind DEEPL - the stories on "Without Cliches" are always full of very colorful phrases, idioms, very informal language - and DEEPL (unlike, say Google translate) gets it 99% correctly.)
Yes, it's excellent. I can only hope some of my clients never find out about it. ;)
Tomas
Posts: 3444
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews

Post by Tomas »

(from Czech "Without Cliches" website. Very long story. No link to PIttsburgh - just a really cool personal story. He talks about his substantial problems with English language. For goalie experts ( @mikey ? ) - is this known about him?)

Vitek Vanecek: "Lost"


Czech original with some cool pics:

https://www.bezfrazi.cz/pribehy/vitek-vanecek/ztracenej


or very good deep-learning translation through DEEPL.COM of the full article:
Lost
Vítek Vaněček ice hockey


My phone was buried somewhere, or maybe I didn't even take it to the beach. So when my agent couldn't reach me, he dialed my dad's number. He had his cell phone with him.

"What? Vitek? Yeah, I'll pass it on."

That spring we had a successful World Championship with the youth national team, we reached the finals, which was a rare achievement for Czech youth hockey at that time. And even though I had a part in this medal, I didn't expect it to have any more resonance towards the NHL draft.

After all, I had only played one game as an adult, in the first league for Venice.

That's why I didn't even fly to Philadelphia for the draft. The agent said it was no use, that's where the guys with ambitions to go in the second round go. With me, he said he was looking at a sixth-seventh. I dreamed I'd get somebody interested in the tournament, but I was also realistic. I fell asleep on Friday night during the first round broadcast and the next day I was going to make sure that if I came out, it would be sometime during the night our time.

To top it off, my dad handed me the phone on the beach late in the afternoon, saying an agent was calling.

"Vany, you're a second round pick, Washington took you. They want to talk to you."

I didn't think it was a stunt at first.

I was scared at first, wondering what I was gonna tell anybody. I don't know a word of English.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

When I was in the third grade in elementary school, the natural choice was German. My dad used to bring cars back from Germany and wanted me to learn the language so that I could help him one day. It never occurred to any of us at home that I could go to the NHL. I was an ordinary kid from Havlíčkův Brod, and I was pretty good in goal, but it was a fantastic achievement just to make the national team in my junior year and to be scouted by Liberec, one of the best Czech clubs.

I was still doing just enough in school to not have any unnecessary problems, and of course it didn't get any better in the hostel among the same age hockey players, half a country away from my house. I started to slack off on the German, too, because I suddenly saw myself in the extra-league rather than with my dad in the company.

Once. Maybe. If I work hard.

I didn't miss English at all at that time. I didn't need to know what English songs were about. For movies in the original version, I just read the subtitles. And when my brother and I were playing GTA on the PlayStation and something came up that we didn't understand, we jumped on Google Translate.

Suddenly, I was standing on a beach in Croatia, stressed out that I was about to talk to the NHL executives, people who thought I was one of the best goalies in the world in my year, and they were betting on me.

People who could speak the language of the rainforest natives and it would be the same for me.

I had no idea what to do. I was just afraid that I'd be an embarrassment and suddenly they wouldn't want me. Luckily, the agent joined the conference call, too. He translated what they said and interpreted my answers at the same time. That alone was embarrassing.

Wow, I'm gonna have to start learning English. At least a little. The direction of my career had completely flipped within months of my eighteenth birthday, and I wasn't prepared for it.

My agent got me a tutor right away, but that still meant only a few hours a week with a teacher. There was no comparison to what was waiting for me in the booth of the hockey team. Plus, I continued to speak and think in Czech every day. At least the goalie coach in Liberec, Martin Láska, helped me a lot. He started to give me English instructions on the ice so that I could get at least the most important expressions into my head.

Glove. Slide. Push. Shuffle.

But I still worked with him mostly on impressing as a hockey goalie in Washington. I've been working on myself a lot, and English hasn't been on my mind in my spare time. I couldn't suddenly catch up on what I'd missed for years.

Still, today I know there was more I could have done. I should have embraced English immediately. If I could turn back the clock, I would have lain in vocabulary every day, maybe even taken an online course. I would have bitten. Instead, I made excuses for all the free time I could have devoted to English. I mean, I'm going to Washington for hockey and the language, somehow that's going to get done.

Oh, ****.

If an 18-year-old kid with NHL aspirations told me today that he didn't give a **** about English and would somehow learn it on the fly, I'd show him my example. I'd tell him I was the same way. And I'll tell him how I felt lost in America from the first moment. And that it was my fault and my fault alone.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I was hoping they'd leave me out.

Right after the draft, I flew to Washington for rookie camp, and even though everyone could tell right away that I didn't speak a word of English, I didn't avoid being interviewed on club TV.

I immediately asked Kuba Vrana to come with me and save my ass.

Vrana was drafted a round ahead of me and we made the first trip to America together. Thanks to the fact that he had spent the previous years in Sweden, he already knew English, so I stuck with him as best I could.

That conversation, where he was translating back and forth, turned into quite a comedy. The guys from the Czech Republic immediately loaded me up for him, we had a lot of fun. I laughed at myself too, but at the core I felt stupid for showing myself outwardly like that and having someone else speak for me.

The wren has helped me far more often than just in this situation. But still, there were times when I was left alone. I often sat in the cabin, looking around and not knowing which one was beating. The guys around me wanted to talk to me, but they quickly found out that they weren't going to talk much. If they said the biggest insults to my face, I would just keep smiling and nodding.

I was afraid to walk down the hall alone in case I met someone and they didn't want something from me. I wasn't stressed about not being up to this environment hockey-wise, I was stressed about having to show I didn't understand all over again. Just so someone wouldn't talk to me for God's sake.

It happened that the coach wanted to say something to me - and I just looked at him apologetically.

My agent prepared me in advance that the Capitals were thinking about a contract. They said they'd been watching me for a long time and it's no coincidence they took me this high. That's why when I ran into the general manager at the first training camp in the back of the arena and he gestured for me to come with him to his office, I knew what was going on. And I knew that I had to check the figures and the amounts to make sure everything matched up.

I sat down in the chair, he started talking to me slowly and I just nodded my head.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I don't understand a damn thing. Put the pencil down in front of me and don't ask me any questions.

That's what happened, and I scratched the contract. On the one hand, I felt good about signing with an NHL club two months after I was just an ordinary junior goalie in Liberec. But I still felt kind of... stupid. I mean, if the papers had said that I had just become a roller skate driver in the training hall, I wouldn't have known it.

Of course, the club wasn't happy that I didn't understand anything. They could see how uncomfortable I was whenever I got within two metres of Vranic. I had him with me even when I was arranging my equipment, because I would have been able to swing the pads for the outfielders.

Mitch Korn, the goalie coach at the time and a big figure in the industry, started working with me the most. Great guy. Maybe it helped that he had seen Hasek, Vokoun or Neuvirth before and was sympathetic to the Czechs, but his patience was admirable.

Apart from showing me exercises I had never experienced before, he also carefully demonstrated everything, named it and made fun of it.

"Holes," he pointed to the gap between the concrete, for example, and then added in a funny tone: "No sticks!" Just to put my feet closer together. Or when he motioned for us to go get a drink, I was the only one left standing. Not that I was so stupid that I didn't even understand this, but I just didn't want to drink.

"Vitek, vodka, vodka," Mitch yelled.

Olaf Kölzig, a former great goalie who is in charge of developing young players at the club, wrote me a basic hockey glossary again. From the pieces of equipment to the instructions I need to know as a goalie.

"You've got a player on your back."

"You've got the puck between your legs."

Everything word for word. I was grateful to him because it helped me learn how to function on the ice without too much trouble as soon as possible.

Life doesn't just happen between the lines on the hockey rink.

The second year I flew to America alone, I only had a message from my agent that someone from the club would be waiting for me at the airport. But my kit bag didn't arrive until then, so I called him at four in the morning on his time to see if he could help me. I wasn't even close to being able to talk to the man at the counter.

The guy who had been waiting all this time to take me away then started, "How are you? "

"Fine."

And that was it. I didn't know the answer to anything else. A year of tutoring took its toll pretty quickly. The driver soon found out we weren't going to talk much. He gave me a ride to the ice rink, but it was locked. Great. I had no idea where our hotel was or what time I was supposed to be there.

I called Vranic right away.

I handled the car just like that, with the phone on my ear and the agent on the other side. When I found him with a flat tire after practice one day that year, I figured I'd get over it and not call anyone.

But after a while, I realized I needed to figure out how to say bike.

I went to the car dealership, where the lady apparently claimed - as I understand it in hindsight - that they didn't have the type I needed. That I'd either have to wait a few days or they'd give me something expensive. So what do I say, she asked.

"Yes. Yes."

She quickly realized that I was completely out of line, gave me the more expensive one, I paid and left with a new bike.

She reacted the same way as the cop who sometimes pulled me over at that time because I was speeding. Luckily only by a little, but still, he tried to explain something to me. Only when he saw that I didn't know which one was beating did he just give me a token ticket and let me go.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

On the way to the apartment where I was supposed to live with two other teammates, I repeated the words in the car. I wondered how I was gonna make it. I was being driven by a native Czech who lived an hour's drive from North Charleston, where I started my first overseas season in the ECHL. A guy who was arranged by the club to be on hand if I needed him.

I didn't want to use his help too much. More like just in case there was trouble. That's why I prepared myself for the welcome.

But as soon as the guys started on this helper of mine in fluent English upon arrival, my whole idea was in shambles. "That's it," was all I could think.

Once the Czech left, I unpacked my stuff in my room and my roommates wanted me to follow them. They tried to talk, but gradually we came to a tried and true method.

Hands. Feet.

We put together who I was, where I was from, if I had a girlfriend... And when I needed to find plates, cutlery, find out what was whose and if I should buy my own dishes, how we shared the washing machine, but also the wifi password, I just wrote a message to the Czech and then had the guys read it.

They were great in the end. They understood that I couldn't babble, so they tried to communicate with me as much as possible to talk me out of it. They dragged me everywhere with them. When I didn't understand that we were going to the pool, they would point to the swimming pool and say, "Swimming." When fans started coming up to get autographs at a team event and wanted to talk to me and I just put on a sad face, they explained to people that I didn't speak English. They also took me to a restaurant where I didn't know what to eat, and when I figured out something on the menu with the help of the guys, the waiter started talking to me anyway and I didn't catch on. All he did was ask how I wanted to make steak. I ate steak all the time at first. And salmon or rice or potatoes.

And asparagus. Asparagus in English. I like that so much, I taught him quickly.

Vitek Vanecek, ice hockey

That's how I really started to discover the language. As soon as the goalie coach wrote to me, I immediately translated the words I didn't know and tried to remember them. The vocabulary cards also helped me. Ordinary sticky notes on which I wrote the Czech words on one side and the English words on the other. I turned them over and step by step I got the automatisms into my head.

I was advised to do this by a teacher, a Slovakian, who was arranged for me by the club. I studied with her every day for an hour or two by Skype. I was fed up after training and I didn't want to do it, but I knew it was necessary. That the sooner I could understand and speak, the sooner I would feel more like myself.

Thanks to this lady, I finally found out that English is not that complicated, enough things are repetitive. You just need to learn the basics and a few important words properly, the rest comes gradually when you are not afraid to speak and catch familiar things in the other person's speech. My American agent's secretary was nice too. We were discussing something on the phone, and when I stammered out how my English was, she offered to call me every day for fifteen minutes to talk English.

I couldn't ask her to do that, but it just showed how fundamentally great Americans are and try to help.

I could see it in the Charleston booth, where I had Mark Dekanich, an experienced guy and a great teammate, as my second goalie. He helped me with everything.

And then there was David Pacan, our best player. They used to put me in a room with him on trips.

Honestly, I felt sorry for him. As much as I tried as hard as I could, he just didn't talk to me much. I told him about the Czech Republic, we talked about cars when we could, but while the other guys were having fun with each other, David didn't have much fun with me. I could see that sometimes he was getting pissed off when he got on my case again.

I called him Dad. To see how much I appreciated his efforts to talk to me.

Vitek Vanecek, ice hockey

That helped me, too. I'm not a grumpy guy, I think I have a happy nature. And Americans appreciate that, too. Even though I didn't speak English at first, I didn't sit in the corner in silence. I tried to live with others. The way I liked it at home. By the end of my first season, I was speaking up.

Completely miserably, of course, but I made fun of it, sometimes even deliberately using mangled words or swear words and trying to retort to jokes directed at me. Because I gradually started to understand. That is, when someone wasn't hollering over the radio on or the journalists in the huddle weren't clapping over each other.


The main thing was to soften up and finally say something.

While in Charleston I sat down with the guys and they took me, my second year in Hershey in the AHL was like starting all over again. I dropped out of English again over the summer and my teammates didn't know me, so I was just someone they didn't have much to say to at first. They didn't even want to take me out to dinner with them because I just sat and watched. They figured it wasn't worth it.

I had a lot of fun with Vranic, who we met again as a team. But my teammates didn't like the fact that we were speaking Czech, and they shouted at us that we were in America, so we should speak English. They looked at us to see if we were talking back. Vranic defended me, he's a great guy. And I followed him around like his tail. That's why they called us brothers.

He helped me with everything. Even to impress the coaches. When we saw one coming down the hall, he was quick to tell me what to say. Let him see that I already speak English.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I remember a moment from my second season in America when the coach walked into the booth and gave a speech to the team. What and how to play, what he wanted us to do on the ice.

I suddenly understood everything.

Finally. Finally!

I was so happy, I wanted to shout it out to the world. Tell all my teammates. I felt completely elated.

I went into my next year knowing that I had mastered English after all. I was able to have fun with my coach, not just nod and wonder what the word was. Even in civilian life, I figured out what I needed to do. A car, a place to live. People started calling me instead of texting me right away, and I wasn't afraid to pick up like I was in my first few seasons. When the guys laughed, I didn't laugh just to join in, but because I knew what we were laughing about.

And most importantly, I could finally talk to everyone. I didn't feel left out, unwanted. I started to think in English and I could be myself. I could be the person my Czech friends knew me to be. Part of everything.

Vítek Vaněček, ice hockey

Sure, I don't speak grammatically correct. To this day I still have a problem with the correct tenses, I usually say everything in the present tense. But everybody understands that now.

When someone points it out, I have a catchphrase ready to say that I live in the present.

If I mix up words or say something differently than a native speaker would, it's just a minor thing. I can handle myself now, I don't panic. I can do the on-camera interviews.

I'm still not proud of how I started in America. The few times I've called home feeling completely lost at the end of the world, where I don't understand anything or anyone. But at the same time, knowing that this was a chance I had to take, that I had to get over it. Work on myself.

Hockey has naturally taught me that you have to fight obstacles, not let them break you.

I was afraid at first that I would be sidelined in Washington because of my English. They really did. That they'd give up on me, after the way I introduced myself at the first camp. I mean, this is the NHL. It's a league where they can pick anybody from around the world. So why would they mess with some Vitek from Havlicek Brod who they're not sure understands how to say right and left.

But instead they tried to help me. The draft itself gave me the confidence that I wasn't useless as a goalie, and the way they treated me in Washington from the beginning only added to it. They gave me the opportunity to fight for my dream.

And so it was that suddenly Vranic and I were walking down the hallway at the Capitals' main camp and Alex Ovechkin was yelling in Czech "Whores!" And while I'm laughing and trying to give him his misery back, I realize that I'm really part of this great hockey world.

Vítek Vaněček, ice hockey

Me, on the beach in Croatia that day, with my phone to my ear, wondering what was going on.

Suddenly, I'm getting dressed in my gear before an NHL game.

Suddenly, I'm staying on the ice longer in the pre-game warm-up to catch the Ovechkin, Oshie and Bäckström trio shootout. Or Ovie fires his uncatchable shots at me without preparation to practice them before he really goes all out tonight, and scores another one of his many goals as a result. By the way, I once bought one from him on the cheek, and while it's like a slap in the face when it's a bad fit from someone else, it's a fist bump from him. I couldn't bite that day. It hurts a lot.

When I realize where I am - and that I can get along with everyone here and even manage to banter and make jokes - I feel great. In a way I never imagined in my early days in America.

I feel full of confidence not only as a hockey goalie, but as a person.

To any of the young hockey players, but really anyone who has a chance to see the world one day, I have one thing to say:

Really learn English. Don't **** it up. You'll be a lot better off when you do.

Tomas
Posts: 3444
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews

Post by Tomas »

(from Czech "Without Cliches" website. Very long story. No link to PIttsburgh - just a really cool personal story.)

Patrik Elias: "The Devil"


Czech original with some cool pics:
https://www.bezfrazi.cz/pribehy/patrik-elias/dabel



or very good deep-learning translation through DEEPL.COM of the full article:
The Devil
Patrik Elias ice hockey


Dallas.

Green and black jerseys. Derian Hatcher, who you really didn't want to meet in the corner. One of the strongest teams of the late '90s. The place where I first touched the Stanley Cup.

And the club I've had my eye on a few times.

I guess.

Lou Lamoriello, the most important figure in New Jersey for nearly thirty years and my boss for most of my career, had a lot of specifics compared to other general managers. One was that you never knew what he had in mind for you or if anything was going on because of potential trades. Never. If he was baking something, the team wasn't allowed to have a clue about it. Throughout the NHL, it was revered that if you wanted to trade Lou, you had to do it on the up and up and keep the negotiations secret. Once something leaked out to the public before completion, it was over.

I'd only ever heard about my possible trade, and that it was probably really coming down to it a couple of times, from outsiders. From journalists, from my agent, or from Czech guys from other teams. "Hey, there's a rumor you're coming to us," came the occasional phone call. And then information about who.

Patrik Elias, ice hockey

The most frequent speculation was about Dallas, with whom we had a tough and, for us, winning Stanley Cup series in 2000. He was coached by Ken Hitchcock, who liked my game. At least, that's what I heard.

But no trade ever came to fruition, and Lou never mentioned any specific trade to me. Maybe he always figured someone was calling me at the time.

In the end, I effectively only left New Jersey for a few days of my overseas career. In the summer of 2006, when my contract expired and I became a free agent. Lou didn't talk to me about an extension all season, and at the end he just wished me good luck, because he said he knew there would be interest in me around the league and other clubs would be able to reward me far beyond the Devils' means. I myself was convinced I would go elsewhere, but I didn't prepare well for the free agent market. I didn't know exactly what it entailed, and instead of flying to the States and sitting in my agent's office after the first of July, where I would see directly the options and proposals from clubs, I stayed in Prague and didn't sleep until 6 a.m. I was always on the phone, figuring out what to do next with my wife, and I called my parents a couple of times. I couldn't and couldn't find the courage to make a decision that would change our future for several years in a few moments.

There were several interested parties, but in the end it came down to two teams, Los Angeles and the Rangers. The Rangers were the furthest we got, we understood the salary and length of the contract, but we were stuck on one addendum. I demanded a clause guaranteeing no trade without my consent. If I was going to make such a move to our biggest rival, I wanted to make sure I wouldn't be moving again any time soon. But Glen Sather, the Rangers boss at the time, didn't oblige me in this regard, so at one point I picked up the phone and dialed a familiar number.

"Lou, how's it going? Would you be interested in having me continue with you?"

I got a contract proposal exactly to my specifications. I didn't understand that he hadn't exchanged a word with me for a year on the subject of a new collaboration, and then within five minutes he presented a proposal that I had no reason not to sign. Maybe he was just waiting to see if I would call.

I took it.

Patrik Elias, ice hockey

At that moment, I knew where I was going to play for the next seven years. And since I was 30, I thought that this signing made it clear. I started with the Devils and I'm going to end up with the Devils. It would be nice to finish here, I thought. Later, when my daughters were born, I enjoyed the opportunity even more. More than ever, I began to realize what it meant to be involved in a particular community where I had experienced so much. What New Jersey represents to me and what I represent to New Jersey. I have definitively and permanently become part of a big family, a player who is looked at differently by the fans than another fan who comes in to play a few seasons and moves on again.

At the very end, I was still toying with the idea of trying out for another team after all. Just on principle, to see what it was like to play for a Canadian club or Detroit, whose concept of hockey I always appreciated. I even negotiated with him for a while before signing my last contract, but it wasn't a good offer from any point of view.

So I left hockey as a Devils player.

I left over twelve hundred games behind.

Over a thousand points.

Over 20 years.

Over a million experiences.

It's been a pleasure, dear New Jersey.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

NHL. I didn't even know what that was. The first time I really noticed that there was such a competition was when we went to Canada with the national team when we were sixteen. In Camrose, an hour outside of Edmonton, there was the Viking Cup, a tournament of various overseas and European selections that was pretty cool from the early eighties on. At first we looked at the local teams, made up mostly of older and stronger guys, with respect and a little fear, but then an interesting thing happened on the ice.

We are playing smarter. We can handle them.

I was also impressed with the smaller ice. I felt like I was comfortable with the game going faster. I was in my element out there.

Plus, we went to the Edmonton game, where Vláďa Vůjtek and Petr Klímá were playing at the time. Then they introduced them to us and we were impressed with them. I was fascinated by the big stadium, lots of people, amazing hockey and, what can we say, West Edmonton Mall, a huge mall with roller coaster, dolphins, water park or ice rink.

This is where I want to go. This is where I want to play one day, I vowed. Suddenly I had a clear goal of what I wanted to achieve.

It was clear that I would follow the path of hockey in my life from the age of thirteen, when my teammate Michal Mikeska and I started to outperform others at home in Trebic. My parents and I discussed what to do next. My two older brothers were also playing hockey, but one of them was just finishing and the other one was forced to do so by a serious injury when he lost a kidney during a game. Their opinion also pushed me to go somewhere where I can improve if I have the ability.

And now where...

In Brno the club was declining, in Jihlava they told me they had enough players of their own, so the only option left was Kladno, which was recommended by my brother's friend who played there. Moreover, Mr. Slánský, the head of the local youth, came to offer me a transfer.

I won't lie, I didn't want to go that far. I knew I'd miss him.

Patrik Elias, ice hockey

And I did. I introduced myself as a weepy sucker who was perpetually sad. You couldn't just call home then like you can now. There was only one guy from Moravia in the club, a year older Lada Kohn from Uherské Hradiště, who understood what I was going through and helped me a lot. I used to go to Trebic only once a month, and that was in a way that even the journey to space seemed easier. Since I was going out on Friday nights after the games, I could only manage a quick trip to Dejvice. From there I took the metro to Florenc and there I either got lucky and caught a bus to Jihlava or straight to Trebic, or I had to take a train to Pardubice and there change to another one to Jihlava.

Unreal rushes. I would get home at dawn and have to go back the next day. I don't know how I managed it as a little boy alone at all those stations.

In Kladno, we all went to a hockey class at the apprentice school with a high school diploma and had to live on the intram until we were eighteen, which was simply awful. Sometimes mice would run down the hall during general cleaning. There were governesses on each floor to watch us and one of them, an older lady, was getting a terrible beating from all the teenage hey-jobs. She was suffering, I felt sorry for her. We used to have ice until 9:30, then we came in at 10:30 and there was no hot water. Then, for a week, we got up at quarter to five in the morning, because the bus was going to the police station, where we learned to drill, turn and work with sheet metal.

Honestly, I was never one for manual labor and that's where I acquired an even greater aversion to it. And it's a good thing I didn't lose my hands, because one of my teammates, a chubby kid from Kralupy, got the sheet metal on the drill and his first reaction was to grab it. Of course, he cut his palm completely and a lot of blood came out. He was done with hockey.

We always looked forward to the 9:00 snack the most. Seeing some nutritionist there pouring meatloaf into us would have been a real bummer, but for us it was the best moments of the workday.

After all, the grilled chicken at the stand in the square, which we absolutely loved, probably wasn't much better.

Culinary experiences were prepared for us by Tomáš Vokoun, with whom I had been living with Pavel Trnka for the last year. Tomáš was a trained cook and he cooked for us. If we had money to buy something. As we started earning money, they gave us an individual plan at school and after training with the A's we had enough time, now and then we ran to the vending machines. It was a Kladno specialty, most of the local boys played them and we younger ones wanted to match the older ones.

That's why we had months when we ate only instant soup with rolls. There was nothing else.

Fortunately, I didn't become a gambler and it went well hockey-wise. Mr. Sindler was our manager for the first two years in the youth and he put me on the first line right away, where I won alongside the older boys Béda Carvan and Zdenda Kudrna. Moreover, from the first selection in Slane I was chosen for the national team, where I played steadily with Vencou Varada and Pepík Marha. It was fantastic years with them. If you don't count the seasons in New Jersey alongside Jason Arnott and Péti Sýkora, this was the best offense I've played in. We were unbelievably good, we scored a lot of goals and won every tournament until the 18's championship, where we didn't make it to the finals and finished third.

Only the Kladno A team was not my cup of tea.

It was dominated by guys just a few years older than me, Patera, Procházka, Vejvoda, Gardoň, Zajíc or Veber. They played great hockey and I was just one of the other youngsters trying to catch on. I trained with them since I was 17, but I didn't get many chances. They'd let me on the ice for a few minutes or I'd sit. I saw Petya Sýkora, a year younger than me, in Pilsen, and I thought, why don't they give me a chance? I always got my taste for juniors and the national team, but I was annoyed that I wasn't playing as much. Coach Neliba was pretty cool, but his assistant Mr. Müller didn't like me very much. As soon as I made a mistake, he didn't support me.

"He's terrible, sit him down," I heard behind my back on the bench.

Still, I caught the eye of Honza Ludvig, a former Devils forward and scout at the time. He liked me in the national team and later told me that he went to see me three times in the NHL and I never played once. Twice I sat out, and the third time I reached into the glass door before a game in Pardubice and cut a vein in my arm, so they took me to the hospital. So each time he had to write that I looked good in the warm-up. Still, he pushed me through, and New Jersey actually drafted me.

My NHL dream was closer, even though not everyone liked it.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I was always the second smallest in my class. I wasn't even a hundred and sixty centimeters at the end of elementary school. Short, skinny, bone and skin.

"What's that dead guy going to do, he'll burn up like paper," one of the Trebic coaches said about me when I left for Kladno. Something similar came to me when I was heading to America.

But none of those who spoke about me like that knew my character. In my mind, neither centimeters nor kilograms played a role. There, everything was driven by my competitiveness and my natural desire to match my older brothers. From a young age we played hockey together on the patch behind the house and I never wanted to be the outcast.

Plus, my dad pushed all of us to do something more than the others. We ran the downhill course in the mountains, and the long stairs not far from our house again. Once my dad didn't like the way I played in a schoolboy game, so he dropped me off on the way from Jihlava and I ran after the car up the whole long hill towards Brtnice. And when I was opening my mouth to the coaches at the age of thirteen, because I knew everything best, my dad jumped from the stands to the dugout, slapped my helmet and told me to get undressed, that we were going home immediately.

"Zdenek, don't be silly, we still have the tournament," the coaches reassured him.
"No, he's not going to act like that," he replied, and I was really done.

Truthfully, it didn't work much, I was a bastard especially to the other guys when they messed up. I yelled at them because I wanted to win and I felt like they were messing up. I hated it when things didn't go my way.

And most of all, I hated losing.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The year I first flew to camp, the Devils won the Stanley Cup. Their farm team in Albany won the AHL.

Great, I'm supposed to make my mark on the NHL's best team, and if that doesn't work out, I'll be fighting for a spot on the best farm team for a change.

I was confident, but when I first opened the door to the booth where mountains of muscle like Stevens, Guerin, Daneyko, Chambers and others were changing, I stayed away from the walls. Still, I knew one thing: since childhood, I'm used to everyone around me being stronger. That's how I felt back in Camrose. If I put speed and thought into my game, I could do it.

And I will.

I took every exercise as a fight for my life. They're gonna get me or I'm gonna miss. I'd zig, I'd hint, I'd dodge. I relied on my skill and agility and most of the time I was the one who succeeded.

One of the greatest tributes to me was paid a few years later by our coach, Larry Robinson, himself a member of the undefeated Montreal dynasty of the 1970s and subsequently the coach who managed Gretzky. He told me that in his eyes I was one of the best hockey players in terms of reading the game. That I had hockey sense. Hockey sense, as they say overseas.

Thanks, Larry.

I've had that since I was a kid. Even on TV, I watched collegiate sports in a way that made me wonder what, how, who was doing what and why. I enjoyed football, and in hockey, I found the most joy in a good tackle.

I wasn't afraid of fights even between those hundred-pound fighters, although I did start to gain weight in America, but I never tried to push anyone over the line. It was more like I looked at the other team for a long time, thinking I was going to collide with them, and then I jumped. I used to love doing that. Or I'd drop the puck between my legs to avoid collisions.

If I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have survived in the NHL in the '90s.

Patrik Elias, ice hockey

I can say I've never known hockey that really hurt. Almost every shift you got the axe, and when you decided to step in front of the net, you immediately landed a couple of crosses on your back. The defensemen weren't the fast-skating technicians they were today, they were giants without compassion. It still hurts me just thinking about the 2001 Stanley Cup Final and all those fights with Adam Foote. Or the games against Philadelphia, who had players like each other, big and strong. Beukeboom, Kasparaitis, McGillis. Yay, that was bruising. And what can we say, concussions, which weren't dealt with nearly as severely then as they are now. You just got a headache, but you kept playing.

I often didn't want to go to Philly because I knew what it would look like. We'd get beat up, the fans would yell and spit at us, and no sooner would we sit in the penalty box than they'd be pounding on us through the plexi.

It's funny, I always did well there. Just like against the Islanders and Rangers, the rivals we faced most often. My favourite team was Montreal, who played technical European hockey, and the people there were loud but polite. Similar to Toronto, although our playoff battles didn't lack emotion either.

I got into a fight there, too, when Darcy Tucker put a cross in my teeth.

But back to my first camp... Petya Sykora and I, who came the same year, were immediately put in rooms with Canadians to get used to it. I was put in with a guy named Rob Pattison, a farm boy. Poor guy, it was like he was living alone. I'd been learning English since the draft, but I still didn't speak a word of it.

I was kind of hoping Bobby Holik would take over, but after five years overseas, he was only able to say "Chow" at most. He quickly led us out of the mistake that he would help us in any way, rather we gradually taught him Czech again, because he had married an American and had picked up a strong local accent. Still, I feel that it was Bobby who interpreted my first big conversation with Lou. After the first camp, he wanted to send me to juniors and I tried to explain that he didn't. It was either the farm or I was going back to the Czech Republic. I had no idea at the time what kind of personality I was blatantly contradicting. But it worked, I was reassigned to a farm in Albany, where I met the best coach I could have asked for.

Robbie Ftorek saw it in me.

He put me on the first line with Stevie Sullivan and Scott Pellerin. Stevie and I were a good hockey fit, and he showed me that even a small player can make it, and Scott was an honest hard worker, a leader. I enjoyed playing hockey in Albany. We had a great team, we were winning, we had maybe eleven thousand people coming to see us, and I was excited about everything. Even the endless bus rides that come with the AHL, or Robbie's skating sessions. He was able to spice it up, we did parachute rides, competitions, it was classy.

I also gained respect by standing up to Chris McAlpine, a big shot from the defense. He was cutting me down, because I was a young kid from Europe, so I didn't let it bother me and I pulled him over too. It's a good thing we got ripped apart, because he would have smashed me, but at least I showed I wasn't afraid.

I had a lot of help from my Polish teammate Krzysztof Oliwa, the custodian who arranged everything with me around the city, as well as a family I stayed with when I was shuttling between the farm and the first team. We still see each other to this day. I bought my first car back then, a white Jeep Cherokee, and would drive home from training to turn on the TV to catch English. I also got a labrador dog. That was my partner.

We set a league record for points in Albany that year, but went down 0-4 in the first round to Cornwall Aces, who were coached by Bob Hartley and played for Pepi Marha. We were actually playing with about thirteen men due to injury. I had a good season though, kept up a decent productivity for a rookie and even made my debut for the Devils. Even though I didn't understand the rules of the NHL yet and often wondered like many other guys why they called up so and so and not me, the games in New Jersey gradually increased.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

"Start thinking about yourself in another dimension. You have great potential, but until you realize what you can do, you can't do anything."

Robbie Ftorek's words stuck in my head. When he was made coach of the Devils, he called me in and said this to me. He helped me tremendously. I just looked at the guys around me like they were something more. I mean, they were Stanley Cup champions. What did it matter that Marty Brodeur was just a little bit older, he was already a legend to me, and so was Scotty Stevens, Scotty Niedermayer, Johnny MacLean and Billy Guerin. But Robbie put us together with Syky, who we'd already gotten along great with on the farm, and we found we were no worse than the experienced guys around us.

After a while, as our role on the team grew, we even allowed ourselves to have some fun.

Like we always wanted to go two-on-one against Stevens in practice. We crossed him three or four times, which got him reliably fired up, and he'd grumble about it and if we thought we'd have time to do that in a game.

Patrik Elias, ice hockeyWell, we had...

The others made fun of us for being two kids. That we're always giggling like women. We often spoke Czech to each other, which also helped us during the game. If we shouted something at each other, our opponents had no idea what it was. They couldn't react properly.

In the line, where Jason Arnott was playing with us at center, we had a conspiracy agreement that as soon as we played on an empty net on the opponent's power play, we had to pass the puck to get all three points. So the first thing we did when we got the puck in that situation was to selflessly look to see where the other two were.

I mean, unselfishly towards us. Not towards the other teammates.

On the power play, again, we agreed that whoever could pass the puck to the other two for a shot without preparation would get the puck. Always. Whenever we had space and just a little bit of a chance, whoever was charging for the volley would take it.

The thing that always comes back to me from that time is our practices back then. They were often better than the game, because Bobby Holík soaped everyone indiscriminately, which gradually made the others more excited. He was a physical monster with a tremendous natural strength that I had never seen in anyone else, and not knowing anything like a looser pace, he was capable of chopping your arms off on the first exercise. Come to think of it, we had an amazing, right-tuned team back then.

And the architect Lou was overseeing everything.

It was a regular war under him, as anyone who lived through it will tell you. From the first time he shook your hand, he gave you the rules to follow, and he personally followed them. If he then missed two or three days in a season when he didn't show up at the booth, that's too much. He had everything under control, he didn't miss anything. He talked to the coaches, he was at every meeting and video conference and his opinion was decisive even on tactics.

If we had a bus leaving at six, we had to be on at ten-six or it was bad. He hated it when anyone walked around with their head down. Don't be angry, but don't spread negativity, he used to say. With the absolute exceptions of Gilmour, Mogilny and Jagr, we could only wear our jersey numbers until we were 30. We were also obliged to walk around clean-shaven, and if Lou saw someone with stubble, he'd shout at them if they knew where their razor was. There was no such thing as someone with long hair sticking out from under their helmet.

Now check out this picture...

Yeah, I've been trying to see what I can afford. I was a bit of a rebel. Lou tolerated my blonde mane as long as I played well, but he still had reservations when I switched to short platinum. I looked like Billy Idol. And the worst was when I got dyed black one day before the All-Star break and added three red stripes. The hairdresser said it would wash out in five days. During the time off, I kept going to practice, thinking Lou would be gone, only of course he showed up the next day. Probably to check on who was getting extra.

When he saw me, he immediately asked what that meant.

I was counting on him not understanding hair trends, so I replied that this is how the black on blonde one caught on by itself.

"I don't care at all. Do something about it right now," Lou responded, so I had to go completely black that same day. The memory of the stripes remained only inside the helmet. Red everywhere.

Sometimes Lou and I had more serious fights. He had a problem with my hockey and my attitude. Three times we got into very heated arguments behind closed doors. For example, I shouted at him that he didn't like me because I was from an eastern country and grew up under communism, and he blamed me for my then-girlfriend who was in America with me. He said I was young enough to be in a long and serious relationship. That made me very angry. What did he care who I was living with? The fact is that because of my girlfriend, who didn't have her own agenda and was just waiting for me at home, my agent at the time, Mr. Henyš, was also crazy about me.

Lou was strict about these things too, he rarely let anyone near his body. but you knew he only knew one real family. The Devils. On the other hand, if any of the boys got into personal trouble, he helped them as much as he could. But you certainly wouldn't say he was a nice guy to talk to. He exuded respect at all times, you couldn't even be yourself in front of him many times. The deeper I got into English, the more I understood how he was able to shout down everyone in team meetings. To the point of embarrassing him.

You get replaced, you don't meet the team's standards, you don't represent the logo, bye-bye. Then he took you aside and gave you the same treatment.

The only two guys who could do anything, Brodeur and Stevens. And he never even gave Niedermayer a second thought either, he was a totally unconflicted and quiet player. But he often took me in the mouth in front of everybody, especially in the early years before I got a little wiser. He even got annoyed with things like me slamming the dugout door in anger during a game. Or that I wanted to wear black knives on my skates. Right during practice, the custodian came over and said he was sorry that Lou had scolded him. That no one would stand out from the team.

That order brought us success and earned Lou respect, yet I think there were certain areas he didn't handle well. Like PR. He had Brodeur with Stevens or our line with Syky and Arnott when we were one of the best offenses in the NHL, yet he never wanted to sell individuality to the media. Team. Team. The team, that was his, yet he could have gotten a lot more fans and thus money. But people only came to see us because we had results, not because we had one of the best goalies in history playing for us and a defense led by an amazing leader that the entire NHL was afraid of.

The owner at the time, John McMullen, gave Lou 100% free rein and he didn't worry about any PR. That was one of the reasons he got into more and more arguments after the ownership change and eventually left. The manager himself is great, but I don't think he has been able to function in the new era of hockey like he did in the previous one. The NHL was changing, but he still stuck to his recipe and relied on experienced players. We weren't bringing in enough youngsters, which slowed down the development of the organization.

There were times during my career when I didn't like the way he treated me. Like when I lost my captain's C after a year. New coach Brent Sutter made the decision, which was fine, every coach has the right to bet on his horses. But I was upset that I heard about the change from the press.

They asked me what I had to say about not being captain anymore, and I had no idea what to say.

Lou caught me off guard at that point because as he had everything under control, here he was letting Sutter do whatever he wanted and he hadn't even said anything to me yet.

After all, I've had many different coaches. For example, we had a bit of a war with Pat Burns, who led us to my second Stanley Cup in 2003. We had practices where we weren't even allowed to touch the puck for the first ten minutes. We circled the ice like kids, waiting for coach to come to us. Maybe he was just trying to show us who was boss. The first drill followed, shooting from the second blue line, then from the red line and the nearer blue line. Anyone who missed the net was doing push-ups. It seemed pointless to me. This is NHL practice? Pat used to be lauded as a top coach, but I don't think he taught us that much systemically, we picked things up from Larry Robinson and before that Jacques Lemaire.

It was Jacques who set the famous trap in the middle zone. He wanted the centre not to go forward at all, he thought that's what the wingers were for. Thanks to this tactic, the Devils won the Stanley Cup in '59, when they frustrated the far more talented Detroit, and that's why most of the league gradually switched to this no-pressure approach to the point guard.

Robbie and Larry allowed us to do some creative things, though. Larry even used to say that he didn't care what we did in the offensive zone, he just wanted us to score more goals than we got, and to have one forward back, any forward. Yes, when we lost the puck we had to line up in the middle zone and wait, but it made sense to all of us at the time. Why exhaust ourselves chasing the opponent when we can wait for them and then close them down and have more energy to counterattack? We weren't shooting pucks blindly, we just weren't wasting energy playing without the puck.

It may have led to the perception that we were playing boring hockey, but we scored the most goals in the league in the 2000/2001 season in addition to scoring few. Nobody pointed that out anymore. Mogilnij scored over forty goals that season, I scored forty goals, Syky scored thirty-five, and other guys scored over twenty. We had an exceptional attack.

We didn't feel like we were playing boring.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

In the years 2000 and 2001 Lou fine-tuned our team perfectly. Young Scott Gomez has joined a stable lineup for years and Brian Rafalski has fit in wonderfully on defense. I have never experienced such an intense feeling of inner strength when we knew we could beat anyone. We knew our roles. We had two stacked offensive lines, then Bobby, Randy McKay, Jay Pandolfo, John Madden, Sergei Brylin and Sergei Nemchinov, who were hard workers on the defensive end and did a great job, plus they could hit on their own.

Damn, that was something so amazing. Everyone knew exactly why they were on the team.

We had Slava Fetisov as an assistant coach at the time, one of the best backcourts of all time, and we dealt with him on the power play. He left us free to come up with something and come to him and talk about it. We played what I once learned from Patera and Procházka in Kladno. A faceoff where the defenseman would come back for the puck and the other four players would stand at all four ends of the blue lines, spread out across the field. Thanks to Marty Brodeur, who could pass the puck better than any back, we were getting a lot of chances in those situations, only because the opponents couldn't cover us, and we quickly crossed into their zone.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I don't even remember how I first got my hands on the Stanley Cup after Game 6 in Dallas. I don't remember if it was cold or how heavy it felt. I was just holding it and shouting something in Czech in euphoria, then in the booth we were smoking a cigar with Bobby and Mr. Holík, his dad. After dinner, a couple of the guys and I stayed at the hotel while the rest of us went into town. We just sat and talked and felt a tremendous sense of relief after all the hard work we had done.

Even Larry hung in there with us. Another coach I'll always rightly praise.

He was the one who kicked us to victory in the conference finals when we were down 1-3 to Philadelphia. He's a nice guy. A guy who likes to work hard, but also cares about everyone having fun with hockey. He wasn't a strict type of coach. However, when he too, the kind of character who doesn't like confrontation, came into the booth and started kicking and throwing baskets around, we were so impressed and got such energy from his emotional rampage that we managed to turn the series around. We saw how much the Stanley Cup meant to a coach who had reached the top so many times himself, but still had the desire to win again. He told us that we only had one chance in our careers and we couldn't waste it.

Game 7 against the Flyers ended 2-1 and I scored both goals. I'll never forget them.

Patrik Elias, ice hockey

I just don't know what stick it was with anymore. When it wasn't sticking for a couple of games, I used to take Syky's, they were more flexible and the puck flew better. I changed sticks like that over and over again. Mogilnyj was a similar psycho, but he was putting it out there every game and still throwing his sticks and skates in the trash, saying he couldn't skate and something.

We had one ritual together with Syky. We'd eat cheesecakes from the restaurant we went to for dinner.

Another of Lou's rules was that the team had to stay at the hotel during the playoffs and home games. While at other clubs the guys liked to take a break from each other, we were always together, and night after night we'd meet at a place just down the street from the rink that was a bit mafia-like and strangely dark. But the undeniable advantage was the amazing cakes.

Ever since we found out that they brought us good luck, we'd even have them packed to go. Before every game, we'd even wash them in each other's room, where we stayed together, of course. At that time I weighed the most in my career because of it, some ninety-three kilos.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

A good pass has always meant more to me than a goal. I also loved when games were breaking down. I've always wanted to be the one to make a difference. I know a lot of hockey players want to do that, but I was lucky that I was able to make a few decisions early in my career, and that's why coaches put me in at key moments. That's why I'm among the absolute best NHL players ever in terms of overtime goals. And I scored most of them back in the days when even the setup was five-on-five.

I also liked to go shorthanded, which I think helps you stay on pace and still learn to focus on the details of the defensive game. I felt like I was valid in those situations as well.

I was able to adapt. That's a word I like to use to describe myself.

Patrik Elias, ice hockey

Even though I didn't like something a hundred times, I was able to adapt. For example, I played with the guys from the third line because the coaches knew that I would pull them out, that it wouldn't affect my game that much. Others needed good teammates to give the right performance, whereas I just needed a capable back to give me the puck. I was the one who got more out of others, that's where I was valuable to the team. More valuable than guys who are only useful in one situation. Sure, I also only wanted to play with guys I was on the same level with, that's natural, but the older I got, the more I realized the importance of the team.

A lot of things affect a hockey player's career. Where would I have been if I had gotten more opportunities in the AHL back then in Kladno? Would I have rushed to America? Who knows?

But overseas I initially met coaches who liked me, and because I was able to show something, I played more and more. I guess I had some talent in me, but that alone wasn't enough. I went for it, I did extra stuff compared to the others, I stayed on the ice after practices and goofed around, I made up different plays with a couple of other guys.

I loved hockey.

It wasn't until later in life when my family came along that my relationship with it changed a little bit, it wasn't the most important thing to me anymore. But for many years it was, it was all I lived for, and that was the right thing to do. I didn't do everything perfectly, I didn't always behave and concentrate as I should have, but it's in my nature to learn from setbacks.

That's why I've had a hockey life I never dreamed of.

Tomas
Posts: 3444
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews

Post by Tomas »

(from Czech "Without Cliches" website. Very long story. No link to PIttsburgh - just a really cool personal story.)

Radko Gudas: "Stronger Dog"


Czech original with some cool pics:
https://www.bezfrazi.cz/pribehy/radko-g ... lnejsi-pes



or very good deep-learning translation through DEEPL.COM of the full article:
Stronger dog
Radko Gudas ice hockey


Freaking cold like a cow.

My first impression of America, of hot summer California, was a car frozen to maybe twelve degrees. I sat in it crying after I had to call the driver from a Czech number for a lot of money because he passed me three times in front of the arrival hall.

At the age of nineteen, having been taught that in the NHL you have to wear a suit to the ice rink, I dragged myself across London for twenty hours wearing a suitcase, a bag of gear and hockey sticks.

It was a pretty wild journey...

I doubt the clerk at the Turkish airport had ever heard of hockey. There was no point in explaining to him what it meant when my agent called to tell me he'd arranged for me to attend the NHL team's rookie camp. No. When asked why I was leaving Turkey earlier than I should have, and why alone, I replied hotly that there had been an emergency at work. Finally, he relented.

I was in the middle of a two-week vacation with my family, shortly after I hadn't even been drafted the second year. Suddenly, I had to report to Los Angeles in five days.

It involved a lot of quick arrangements, I'd never even flown alone before, but I got on a bus at the hotel and after that little hitch at the airport, when they took the knife out of my backpack, I took the next flight to Dresden, where my grandfather from Liberec came to pick me up. Two days later I was heading to LA. Except that Kings sent me a ticket to the wrong email, so the lady at the airport had to help me find out when and what time I was flying. Eventually, sweating behind my ears, I got into the icy car that was taking me to my first experience with the NHL world.

I opened the cab and there were guys in flip-flops, t-shirts, shorts. "Where are your blocks?" I ask. They only wear those to games, they replied, amused by my outfit.

But what the heck, at least I drew attention to myself before we even stepped on the ice.

Radko Gudas, ice hockey

The camp was an incredible workout, from six in the morning with a break for lunch until six in the evening. We were being skinned. I came straight from vacation, but I had done my summer training, so I had a lot of strength. I gave it my all.

At one practice we played five-on-five, the dude across from me took the puck at center and I waited for him.

His helmet was flying somewhere in the stands when I caught him.

"Wow, I like the way you play," Thomas Hickey, a former top-four draft pick and my defensive teammate at the time, hollered at me. Except the guys on the other team were of a different opinion, and that same shift, after playing the puck near the boards, I was hit by two of them at the same time, each from one side.

Then Kyle Clifford, the Kings stalwart, says to me on the bench, "If I'm playing against you, I'm going to fight you after this."
"What?" I didn't understand a word he said. I may have graduated with an A in English at home, but that was useless here.
"Fight," Hickey gesticulated in explanation.
I said, "No fight. Never fight." I was used to the idea from the Czech Republic that I could fight whoever I wanted on the ice, and if I was careful not to let someone hit me like that, nothing would happen to me.

I got attention quickly at camp and everyone saw that I was going all out. That's why when the coaches were picking pairs for one-on-one drills in the corner, they put me right with Clifford. The meat-eating fool. He'd scoop four chickens onto his plate, scrape the cheese and sauce off them before swallowing them.

They wanted to see me fight him.

We hit each other like crazy. One time I was on my ass, one time he was on his ass. One of us went down, got back up, hit the other one. We didn't give each other a second's rest. Three times like that. Each time I drove back to the crowd with a smile on my lips because I was having so much fun.

That's what the general manager Dean Lombardi noticed, and when we were talking at the end of camp, he mentioned how much he liked my attitude and how passionate I was about my work, and they'd like to know more about me. He invited me to another camp at the end of the summer.

There, they gradually sent all the guys from the junior and farm team away and I was the only one left without a contract. Eventually Lombardi told me that they'd like to sign me, but since I was invited from Europe and didn't make it through the draft, I could only get a one-way contract according to the rules, but I'm not ready for the NHL yet. So let me work through the season that they'll watch me and next year they have a free pick in the third round, they would draft me.

"Count on it, we'd love to make you a King," he said goodbye. It got me off to a tremendous start.

I went on from there to the Canadian juniors, to Everett, which my agent and I chose as the best solution because of the NHL.

I started there by getting my hair cut and shaved by my coach.

Yeah, I was already growing a solid beard. I had my first shave in seventh grade, when a girl texted me about my growing moustache: "Radko, please shave, you look terrible."

But even with my new look, I was doing well. In the first game we were down 1:2 and I scored two goals to turn the score around. Everyone in the locker room was celebrating and excited for me. I made a great signing, and then I played the whole year with Ryan Murray, who's now in Columbus. I had a +45 record, one of the best in the league, decent for a defensive lineman. Although... I didn't consider myself a defensive back then. I scored points, I played shorthanded and power play, I knocked the other team down. I did everything.

And I learned to fight.

About the sixth game, I shot down a guy on their bench. I got jumped by a six-foot dude. He hit me, I hit him, but that was it. I turned around and rushed to the corner to defend. I saw on video what happened next. Someone from them wants to relieve the giant, he reaches for it, swings it back to the dugout, and takes off after me. Before he even touches me, his glove is off, he grabs me and starts loading my underhooks.

I just hold on to him and take one after another right on the jaw.

Up to this point, the most I've ever slapped anyone across the grill is like this, I once yanked a kid's basket in junior high, but I've never had a real fight. Now I was just trying to stay on my skates while getting drummed on horribly. My head was twitching on the penalty and I just kept telling myself, "Oh my goodness, it's not going to be as much fun here..."

But the very next practice our fighters took me aside and showed me how to behave during a fight. How to stand up, where to grab the other guy, and they also told me to always try to hit back. And most importantly, to pick someone as big as me next time. That I shouldn't go into my opponent's biggest beater, that's what they're there for.

"Okay, so always tell me who they are, I don't know them."

That parade came in handy, because every three or four games someone jumped me, I barely took out their teammate. And I had some nice hits, some guys got carried on stretchers. After all, I'd played against grown 100-pound guys at home before and was used to going full speed into every collision, or I'd be the one who got hit. Now I had sixteen year old boys up against me, and when I leaned in, they dropped like pears.

Tampa drafted me in June, four picks ahead of Los Angeles.

At their development camp, I did something similar to what I did last year with the Kings. I scored a couple of goals in the model games, took someone down the middle again, and suddenly I had a rookie contract sitting in front of me with the idea of starting on the farm. I was excited. I'm in the NHL in two or three months, I thought.

It took a little longer. Couple of years. But let's take it from the beginning...

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

All my uncles were hockey players. From a young age, I was around my dad's teammates and was friends with their kids, and we all played hockey together. I had no idea about the world, no idea there was a guy who didn't play hockey for a living. So much so that when a relative from my mom's side came to visit us when I was nine, I automatically asked him who he played for.

"Well... I'm a bricklayer."

I wondered what kind of team these Masons were.

I'm sure many of you remember my dad from Sparta, Brno or the national team in the late 80s and early 90s. He also played in the Olympics and the World Championships, he has medals from here. My childhood unfolded according to where he was involved. Even as a baby I was with him in Finland, then Germany, Switzerland, Norway, then back to the Czech Republic, then Sweden and finally Germany again. I've gotten used to the fact that almost every August we pack up and go to a different country again, we move into a new house, I have to go to a new school, listen to a new language around me, and I have to get used to new teammates at hockey. It felt normal to me, I didn't know any different.

Back in Finland, we used to drag a bag full of toys that my parents used to buy for me, but as the years went by, all I needed was a ball, a hockey stick and some Legos. And even that was more my dad's thing to play with. He used to build me castles overnight, and then I'd come in to play war, and I'd shoot it all up.

Simply put, I spent my whole childhood either skating on the ice or learning the language of that country.

Everywhere I went, I had to learn to function among the locals in a matter of months. For example, on my first day at school in Sweden, I called out "hey" to a boy, which is their "hello", and instead of coming over, he just said hello in return too. I started writing with Swedish letters, and later on in Germany I started learning English again without knowing any German, so I would translate English words into German at home and then into Czech. Totally maglajs. And when I was done with my homework in German or Swedish, my mother - the teacher - came to me with the idea that we should take some more Czech, so I wouldn't forget it. It was an ordeal for me, because from German I was used to writing all nouns with a capital letter at the beginning or I learned "z" differently than it was common in our country. It wasn't until sixth grade that my mom and I returned, while my dad, sister and grandmother stayed in Germany for another year. Only then did I learn what it really meant to live like any other child.

Radko Gudas, ice hockey

The only thing that didn't change for me in all those years was the ice rink. The booth, the skates, the hockey stick, the puck. It was the same everywhere. My dad said that back in Norway I used to go to the lake behind the house. I'd see kids skating there, so I'd rush over and come back when it was dark and I was hungry. I've loved hockey since I was a kid. I used to lie down on the ice and when people asked me what I was doing, I would say I liked the smell of it. My dad used to scold me for lying around again, but my grandmother told him to leave me alone. He was just the same, he was always lying like that.

I didn't understand it at the time, but now I understand how every country trains a little differently. Some places we played the whole rink, some places we played only in thirds, some places we skated a lot, some places less. As far as I remember, I was one of the best everywhere, but in Germany in Augsburg and then Heilbronn as a pupil I was already quite good. For example, we won 16:3 and I scored ten goals and assisted on three. In my dad's red jofa I often just took the puck behind our net and drove the whole field.

And I used to play offense. My dad didn't want me to be a running back, probably because he knew that up front you had less to worry about. I was still a forward in my junior year at Kladno until Coach Lidicky told me in ninth grade when we were short of defenders: "Hey, my dad was a back, so you're gonna try it too, right?"

I had no problem with it.

I managed a couple of games like that, and I just got my first call-up to the national team, to the 16, among the older guys. I come to the reunion, I look at the lineup and I can't find myself in any of the forwards. I'm wondering what's going on when David Stich looks over my shoulder and says, "Hey, we're on defense together, right?" And why not...

That's how I became a running back. I continued to play offense for a while, but eventually they told me that since I was a defender in the national team, it would be good for me to go back in the club.

I stayed in the youth team for three years, they didn't take me to the juniors. It's hard to say if I was simply outclassed or if it was just the fact that Kladno had an incredibly loaded team at that time with names like Voracek, Frolik, Tlustý, Kazatel and others. Anyway, one Saturday I was supposed to go to Plzeň for a youth game, I was lying in front of the TV and my dad came home. Not long before that, he and Karel Najman had started coaching the first league Beroun, where they often put together a lineup based on who they sent from the extra-league teams. But suddenly two guys got sick, another got injured in the morning and they couldn't borrow another one from the league, so they couldn't even field three defenses.

"Hey, where are you playing today?" asks my dad.
"In Pilsen."
"Hmm, you're playing in Brno."
"That's some nonsense, isn't it?"
"It's not. We're leaving in an hour, get dressed and go to Kladno to get our gear."
"What?"
"Well, we need a running back, I've arranged with Karel and we're taking you. He said he wanted to try you out anyway."

I was sixteen and suddenly I was going to my first adult game. I heard sometimes afterwards that I only got the chance because my dad coached it. That may be true. But a chance was all I needed.

Because I was ready.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I didn't even have time to turn around before I was lying down.

When I was still a forward in Beroun's youth team, in one match I was running to the middle of the field for a pass. I was looking around to see when I would get the puck, but no sooner had it landed on my stick than I hit a specimen tree. I lay there like a man down, barely catching my breath, wondering what the **** had happened.

A giant was standing over me, visibly enjoying the moment he shot me down.

Right there, at that exact moment when I bought my first big hit in my life, I realized I must never make the same mistake again. I realized what a shame it was to be the one who got loaded.

This body was like a wake-up call that changed everything. I must always be the one who laughs at others, I vowed. I'm the one who wants to do to others what this guy did to me. I want to be the one who looks down on others rolling around on their ass. Because when you throw somebody away like that, it's a huge boost to your confidence. Someone's sitting underneath you, they don't know how it happened, and you can give them a simple look that makes them feel even worse.

Stronger dog ****, that's what it's all about.

Sorry for the harsh word, but that's a favorite phrase used by the guys in the Beroun A. I can't beat it into my kids' heads yet, but it describes my approach to hockey. Either you get the other guy, or he gets you. There's no in-between. When I was 16 and playing for the A team and my second youngest teammate was about 22, I had to deal with it. Beroun was a team of matadors. Křestan, Slížek, Jelínek, Braniš, Vlček, Pepa Zajíc... I didn't even dare to call him until he called me after a couple of training sessions and told me that I really shouldn't call him "hello". He also taught me how to earn respect, he had a very quick stick. When I took the puck off his bag, I already bought an axe for each wrist, Pepa knew how to do that perfectly. If I couldn't handle it, they'd eat me.

Radko Gudas, ice hockeyWhen I was playing in the first league and staying in the Kladno youth, it happened that I played for Beroun in Ústí one day and then in Kladno the next day. As a striker. At the ball, the guy next to me suddenly says: "Hey, didn't you play in the first league yesterday?"
"I did, well..."
"Good, good. I've been to see you. So good luck."

That was nice of him. Except halfway through the game he was going around the net and I came in from the other side and spread him out so that he was propped up on the way off the ice.

Guys, the tougher dog ****, I told his teammates, who broke down on me.

Believe me, it's a beautiful feeling to see someone walk away from a collision with you bruised and shaken, barely breathing. Everybody likes something different about hockey, but for me, it's this. Knowing that I've got the other guy beat.

Like my dad used to.

I've watched him soap it up since I was a kid, and I loved it. I remember the clips we had at home on tape. Like when some big guy with a big Plexiglas head is about to give him a headbutt and Dad throws him off, knocks him down in one move. He's a nice guy, but once he got his gear on, he became a beast, cut everybody up. So he always explained to me that on the ice, it's a job that has nothing to do with who you really are. That's the way I take it, thanks to him.

I started playing in the body myself as soon as the rules of kids' hockey allowed it. I enjoyed it, and the **** I got from the Beroun kids just reaffirmed who I wanted to be. I may have ended a few guys' careers in the youth, definitely took some shoulders. That's when they tried to counter me at the rim and I denied them. But the refs threw me out of games in the major leagues. After fouls that I thought were clean, but nobody here was used to them. The fouls weren't expecting to get shut down with a basket. But I was solid, sometimes the other guy bought it with my chin grill, and that was it. I dented a few baskets that way over the season, and I have a lot of scars under my nose from that time. At seventeen I was one of the most punished players in the league, but nobody blamed me for my style, my dad still encouraged it.

Even back then, I would occasionally find someone in the middle and in retrospect I don't understand why I wasn't cut for it. It's just that fights weren't the norm in our house, and if someone tried to hit me, take me out, I could read it and get out of the way. Nobody did. Yeah, there were some huge guys up against me, but I wasn't scared.

Even big trees fall down, they're just a little harder to cut down.

When I saw I couldn't take someone down from above, I went at him with my ass, he broke over me and laid down anyway.

I didn't have a problem with strength, I did a lot of exercises since I was young, originally because of my crooked back and flat feet, but later also just to get stronger. But all with my own weight, my dad used to tell me that weights were useless until I was eighteen, that I would only stop my growth. Because I was never the tallest, I wanted to grow. It was an advantage that my dad knew what was needed and supervised my workouts. And even when we started the gym in my teens, I put on smaller weights to keep it mostly brisk. At home, I did mostly abs and back, that's what you need the most. My routine was twenty minutes before bed in my room. I used to get so worked up afterwards that I couldn't fall asleep, but I didn't enjoy working out in the morning.

The unibars I got from my grandmother were just for pumping up my drumsticks for my swimsuit. Then in the summertime, my dad and I would go shooting at the gate. I used to pretend on purpose that I didn't want him to force me, because then I felt more stressed out.

I learned to shoot with the top of my body, just turning my torso. It wasn't until later in America that we were filmed and I was shown that I needed to swing from the back leg across my body. I had a hard and accurate shot before, but when I pulled the puck nicely from behind, I added a nice couple of kilometers per hour.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The whole way to Brno I was stuck and I was sitting on the bus with a guy who was writing online. "I'll play for the guys, I'll play for the guys," I was thinking.

"Watch out for eighty-one, Appel. He's got fast feet," then hollered the only instruction to me before the game.
"Okay. And how does it look like I'm supposed to watch out?" I thought to myself.

It was about the third inning that I found out.

This Appel guy is coming at me, I'm backing up, backing up, and suddenly he's going around the rim so hard I don't even have time to turn around. I'm just watching him run to the net and it flashes through my mind that this is a little different speed than I'm used to from the minors.

Then my dad told me in the dugout how to get a better shot on him next time, and I really paid attention. But I feel like they didn't put me on the ice against him anymore.

Then I remember taking the puck, lifting my head up and seeing Radek Kristian going to the middle. I threw the frog right on his stick and I was like, "Dude, it's working, I can play here..."

Soon I made the save and the Rondo stands started yelling at me that Gudas was a dude... Well, you know what.

And I liked it.

I didn't care what they were yelling, but I liked that they knew about me. That they were yelling my name. I'm not gonna bullshit, I don't even remember if we won or lost that game, but I was left with the feeling that if I tweaked a few little things for next time, major league wasn't something I couldn't handle. I'm good at passing the ball, I'm good at playing in the body, and the fact that people were yelling at me and pouring beer, that's great. It means I'm in the game, which I like.

Radko Gudas, ice hockey

I still jumped in sometimes this season. I wasn't really busy, but I played. The next year, even under different coaches, I was a steady part of the team.

Meanwhile, in the spring of that year, when I was alternating between the youth and the first league, one start for the Kladno junior team was enough, which Martin Pešout, the coach of the eighteen team at that time, just saw. Even though I hadn't played a game with that year's squad by then, he invited me to join the preparation before the World Championship. "You're coming to Finland with us, yeah," he said to me casually after one of the friendlies.

Wow! I'm going to the 18s!

So it was that infamous team with seven Slavs, we ended up getting relegated. But I didn't play at all, so it didn't get to me as much as the other guys crying in the booth after the decisive defeat by Germany. My dad and mom came and I at least watched the atmosphere of the big hockey event with them in the stands.

The only thing that sucked was that the next year, the first year I could go to the draft and go to the 18s with my year group, we had a bus trip to a Division I tournament in Poland. We had a stacked team. Palat, Kovar, Kubalik, Vincour, Jordan, Rutta, Kempny, Pacovsky and others, Furch and Francouz in goal, and against us Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Ukraine... We didn't even have to prepare for the games separately and we gave seven or eight pieces to everyone. We gave the home Poles a nine and after every goal the hall chanted that nothing happened.

But we didn't care in the end. We didn't have many of the guys who were involved in the mess the year before with us, so we figured we'd not worry about what we couldn't control and enjoy the tournament as much as possible. Of course, we advanced without a hitch, so after the last game we just took off our skates, lit cigars and danced in our gear in front of the rink while We Are The Champions screamed from the booth. On the neck of the gold medal of the IIHF World Championship, which only has "Division I" engraved on the other side. We thought we had done what we had to do, and it was clear that nobody in America cared about that. That we were a lost year.

I didn't even think about the NHL at the time. In Beroun, they raised my contract from three thousand to seven thousand and I enjoyed having lunch money and not having to go to school too much. But I couldn't give a **** about it because my mom insisted that she wouldn't let me leave the house without a high school diploma. So I bit the bullet and somehow got through to her, talking up B's where needed. Fortunately, I had a talent for math, I knew German better than our teacher and I had no problem with English, so I successfully finished high school economics.

Radko Gudas, ice hockey

Honestly, the biggest school of my life was the first league.

I lived among guys with families, heard what they were talking about, and if they were having a shot to stretch their lungs or an alpha on a sugar cube before a game, I couldn't stand out as a rookie. Send it over here!

In my last season, we didn't win sixteen games in a row, the mood was miserable, and you really learned what it means in sports to slap **** around. We were helped by a stew from the custodian, which we all enjoyed, and then he told us he made it out of a dog.

It really worked.

In the meantime, I was also called up for the playoffs in Kladno against Budějovice when they got injured. I played my first game in the Extraliga with a basket and I was on TV right away. I still remember how my hands were shaking. A year later, the coach in Kladno would let me play just one inning and then I would freeze on the edge of the bench. I never understood what he was doing and why he was doing that to me, but on the other hand, I had at least some experience with the league, I was playing steadily in the first league, making twenty-five thousand and at eighteen I felt like a king. I got to play in the 20s in Canada and played against Tavares, Eberle, Ennis, Benn... I was selected as one of the three best players on my team in that tournament, and besides the fact that I still wear that watch proudly to this day, it proved to me that I could play against the absolute best of my year. I scored a few goals, I took down a few guys, I wasn't afraid of anything, and then I read on TSN how Pierre McGuire, a Canadian expert on young hockey players, was praising me.

Things got moving and by the summer I was rushing from Turkey to the Los Angeles camp.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The guy's name is Zack Fitzgerald, and even though he left to play hockey in Scotland a long time ago, we're still friends to this day. Back then, he was a brawler on Carolina's farm, who I played one of my first AHL games against. I shot down their dude, and Zack was pissed at me for it. I had Vlado Mihalik playing defense with me, huge guy. Zack was holding his own against me, but I was yelling at him: "Vlado, please, I need this." I didn't want to get a reputation right off the bat as someone who would instigate a fight and then let someone else fight for him.

"Okay, have fun," Vlado boomed.

The fight started like my first one in junior high. Before I even recovered, I bought about four snout flakes. But then I heard a shout from the bench: "Hit him too! Give him at least one!"

I was so excited, I finally decided to do it. I swung one at Zack, and as my hand came back, I took him with my elbow. I liked it so much that I did it a few more times before the judges separated us. Bruised, we then went to the penalty box, where Zack suddenly calls to me from the other side: "Respect, buddy. I had to do it, it's my job."

With those words, he unwittingly explained to me what pro hockey was all about. It's a business. Not that the other guy doesn't like you, he just has to do what he's paid to do.

"Thanks. Good job," I waved him off. Since then, we've enjoyed hanging out together on various occasions.

In the AHL, this introduction came in handy, because it gradually made it come naturally that I was the one who jumped on the opponent when he hit one of our own. The farm was a jungle in this one, it was always fighting. Everybody against everybody, head to head. In my first season, I had about five fights where the whole five-man team and the goalies got cut.

Radko Gudas, ice hockey

It's been almost a decade, after all, and back then there were still old brawlers in the AHL. Mitch Fritz, Eric Neilson and Pierre-Cédric Labrie played with me, while other teams had pure heavyweights like MacIntyre, Lessard, McGrattan, Yablonski, "Nasty" Mirasty and Gillies. Cruel butchers.

You really don't feel good when you shoot someone down and just see a huge shadow coming towards you. You look up, there's a mountain of meat with a massive whiner on it, and Trevor Gillies is shaking his gloves and saying, "You want some of this?"
"I'm good, mate," I reply. In English, "I'm good," was mine when I really wasn't interested.
"Then watch out."

Good, good, not really with you, mate, sorry about that. I saw what you did to my teammate a little while ago...

I usually picked the same weight guys, like I was told to do in juniors. If I had to fight someone 6'2" like Finley or Tinrodi, I'd rather give him a quick couple and already drag him down, otherwise I wouldn't qualify. Anyway, the fights kept getting bigger. A lot of the locals didn't like the idea of a Czech trying to prove himself, so they were all the more on me, but I didn't care.

After all, the stronger dog ****.

On the farm, it was true without reservation. Goals, passes, fights, I'd take anything to get noticed. I wanted to go to the NHL.

But the first two seasons, we didn't bring any of our young guys up. Still, it was a great time because me and the boys had a house in Norfolk right on the beach. We surfed in our spare time, had a lot of friends and had a great life. First we lived with Vlad and Juraj Šimek, a Swiss guy with Slovak roots, and the second year with Ondra Palát, Riša Pánik and Jaro Janus. We made our own Czechoslovakian comfort.

It was also a blast in terms of acting. The second year we had a twenty-eight game winning streak, we were a really good team. Our second line of Palat, Johnson, Panik was the best in the league, our first line of Smith, Conacer, Labrie... All of them played in the NHL. The veteran Mike Kostka on defense and us young guys, each in their own place, with a clear role. We didn't even need a defensemen coach, we knew exactly who was going on the ice in what situation, we could have rotated ourselves. It worked. That's when I knew what it's like when the team really works and everyone knows and fulfills their role. How hockey becomes even more fun.

We were the fastest and most skilled team in the league, and when we were down and needed to be, we were the toughest, thanks to our fourth line. When things weren't going well, we just beat the opponent and they laid down.

We were coached by Jon Cooper, who is still in Tampa, and even then he knew exactly what to say when and how to get the best out of us. For example, we had a rule that on three-day trips Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we had to score more points than games to get beer on the bus. That meant winning at least two out of three. Since the shortest trip was twelve hours, we really didn't want to spend Sunday night in the dryer. We were incredibly motivated just by the beer.

The last two months of the season were unreal. The constant luxurious feeling of going to the rink and knowing you're going to win. We outplayed everybody, we outscored our opponents 4-0 in the conference finals and then 4-0 in the league finals. It's unreal.

I thought after that success, I was gonna dig in over the summer and finally play in the NHL. But then the strike started on July 1.

I was still under contract that year and wondered if it was worth staying in America. Why, if the NHL wasn't going to be played at all? What are the chances of getting called up? Wouldn't it be better to go back to Europe? My agent told me that I would be against myself, and gave me an example of Pleky, who had also lasted the previous lockout in the AHL, and because of that he was called up to Montreal, where he eventually had a career like a thunderbolt.

I was tempted to pick myself up and go to Russia to make money instead of a maybe useless year on the farm when the opportunity presented itself. Plus, Tampa just moved their backup team from beautiful Norfolk to Syracuse, which is the shithole of the world, don't let any of the locals get mad at me.

But I decided to give it another season. The money can wait.

Radko Gudas, ice hockey

My boys and I made it nicer than it is in Syracuse, too. We were winning and going to the pubs, which was fine with Cooper. He understood that we needed time to ourselves since we were stuck in such a hole. It was enough for him that we did what we had to do on the ice.

In January, the NHL got going and a few of us got invited to camp. Me and Mark Barberio were 100% in the six-back, but at the end coach Guy Boucher called us in and told us that even though we were playing better than some of the others, he had to keep them in because they had one-way contracts. That he couldn't give them a chance.

It pissed me off, but what was I supposed to do? I guess it's my innate humility, maybe my ability to understand the other guy's actions, but I swallowed that decision too. In my mind I was telling the coach to **** off, but I knew I wasn't going to throw away years of work by rebelling when I was so close.

And honestly, that year was the most fun I had on the farm. I enjoyed our life. We basically knew nobody in town, we could do whatever we wanted, and we continued to be incredibly successful. If there's no room for me in the NHL anymore, at least I'll keep doing what I enjoy here, I told myself.

But after a solid start, Tampa started losing, they gradually called up guys from our team, including Palic and Panik, and yeah... What about me? Still sucks. Eight backs were left up there, a couple of which they just really kept there simply because they'd have to pay them the same money on the farm.

Next week, same thing. One more and... Nothing.

I was playing great at the time, I was leading the AHL in plus-minus, I had points, I was fighting, and there was no way up anyway. A situation where an agent started chasing me, saying he could get me to the NHL, pushed me to at least call my agent.

"Hey, what do they want from me? They're terrible, I'm playing everything here and it's still not leading to anything? What more can I give? I feel like packing up and going to Russia."
"Don't go anywhere. Just hang on a few more days, you'll see. They'll have to change it up, they can't keep playing like this."

Okay.

We just flew to Toronto and Newfoundland for a rookie trip, and we had a rookie party, so I spent the weekend drinking because there's nothing to do in Newfoundland but play hockey and drink.

A nice farewell to the AHL.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

We went to a concert on Sunday evening after we arrived and didn't have practice until Tuesday. Monday I slept in so much, I didn't wake up until about 10:00. I look at my phone and there's a text from Steve Yzerman, the Lightning general manager.

"Call me ASAP." Underneath that, unanswered calls.

Oh, I see. So either I'm traded or I'm going upstairs. I hit call back.

"Steve, good morning."
"So, are you sober yet?"
"On this phone, yeah..."
"Okay. We decided to call you up, when do you think you can make your flight to Miami?"
"Whatever's next."
"Then you're on the two o'clock flight."

I immediately called my parents and also called Palic to tell him to wait for me in my room, that I was on my way to see him and we'd finally get to play together again. And I did, the first game against Florida, and right away I got one pass to the middle to Palic. Kind of like the one in Beroun, I knew right away that was exactly what I needed. That moment proved to me that I could do it here.

Apparently there was no player as fast as David Appel, so I didn't miss anyone around the rim this time. Not even Kris Versteeg, whose knee I blew out in one fight when we were going side by side for the puck on the boards. He probably thought he could easily outrun me, tried to jump around me and I left his ass there. He stayed down and I kept going.

Radko Gudas, ice hockeyI didn't like to see a guy writhing in pain, I don't want anyone to get hurt while playing hockey, but on the other hand, it wasn't the first time someone hurt themselves on me. I didn't wish Versteeg or anyone else any ill will, but I can't say that it made me sleep worse or worry about my head. That's what happens when I play hard. Plus, hockey was an individual sport for me back then. I had to make a name for myself, every detail mattered, and that's why the puck just had to get out of our zone at all costs. I couldn't let the guy in front of me.

Stronger dog ****.

Of course, the incident caused a stir, and I inadvertently sent a message to the league that no one was going to drive by me. With every fight I came out of as the one that stayed on my feet, I built a name for myself. I got noticed right away, too. Shortly after that, the club fired Boucher and Cooper came in. His second game against New Jersey, I took down a Devils guy, then their dude took down one of our guys, so we got into a fight and ended up fighting Kostopoulos, my first NHL fight.

I loaded him up. And on the way to the penalty box, when I turned to Cooper, I saw him wink at me. I don't think I've ever felt so good about a fight.

I played the rest of the season upstairs before they sent me down to the AHL for the playoffs. I took it as a joy. I figured I was going to win it all over again with the guys I grew up playing hockey with. For a long time, that's what it looked like. We went undefeated through the first and second rounds, even in the conference finals it was a sure thing. In the last game against Willkes-Barre, we were up 5-0 after two periods and it was 3-1 in the series. Twenty minutes were left of the game. But...

One of the Czechs who played against us, I got hit in the knee. I couldn't even stand on my swollen leg the next day. I was so pissed at him.

It looked like the end of the season for me, but in the finals we were up against Grand Rapids, a Detroit farm full of their young stars led by Mrazek, Tatro and Nyqvist. We were already down 0:3, then the boys pulled it back to 2:3 and in between I got on the ice after ten days of rehab. I tried skating and told my coach that I can't skate backwards, but I can skate forwards.

"Well, if you want, come on the offense," he tells me.

So in game number six, played at my house, I ran out as a fourth-line winger. I didn't get my first shift until about halfway through the first period, but as soon as I jumped on the ice, the whole arena went up and people started screaming with excitement.

I still get goosebumps today when I think about it.

I went forward, one collision, second, third and then immediately change again. That was all I could do.

In the end, we lost, but I had an unforgettable experience and it was still another amazing season. Then in exit interviews, my coach tells me, "Don't ever come back here again. I want you to stay in the NHL."

By then I had already signed a new contract with Tampa, which we worked out during the playoffs. First my agent called and said they were offering me a two-year, two-way deal. With my recent experience, I immediately responded that I had no reason to. With that, I would be swept back to the farm at the first opportunity, and I refuse to do that anymore.

So two two-way years became three one-way years and an average of seven hundred thousand dollars a season.

"Hey, while we're haggling, try for a million and a half," I tell the agent.

We finally settled on an average of a million, which was still money I couldn't have imagined. I mean, I was making sixty thousand dollars a year by then. That paid my taxes and lodging, and I was glad I'd brought a few thousand dollars home at all after the season.

As soon as I signed, we had just finished the second round, so I invited the whole team to the bar. We'd go to a student bar, beer and shots for two bucks. I still made a couple hundred bucks there, but I figured it might as well not matter. I'm gonna be a millionaire. I felt like a world champion, the whole thing seemed like a fairy tale.

I haven't come out of it to this day.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The first game of the next season was played in Boston, for which Jarome Iginla had just started for the first time. The dude I used to watch as a kid, waking up at 7am on the weekend to catch NHL Power Week.

I cleanly took him down and he immediately said he wanted to fight.

Iginla and me? All right, come on...

I was so freaked out on the bus leaving the rink that even Cooper asked me, amused, if I'd realized who I was fighting yet. "Wow," was all I said. It took me a week to mentally recover from punching a guy like that.

But when Iginla came to me in their next mutual fight, saying he wanted to fight again, I was having second thoughts. Gradually I realized that I was in the league with the best hockey players in the world, so we were equal. We're playing the same competition, we have the same goal, and now we're in each other's way. And it's up to me how I handle it.

To get to the NHL, I have to have a certain level as a player. There's no train going over that. Everybody in the league has top-notch hands, they're fast and they do what the other guy does. But to be remembered, you have to be different. There's a lot of good hockey players, not a lot of real players. You gotta have something to stand out, something to catch on. Some people can do it with a shot like a cow, others can beat anyone one-on-one, others have vision and ride with their heads up.

And some people take out the ones with their heads down. That's me.

I'm proud of who I am. I'm a hockey defenseman first and foremost, with all that goes with it, but along with that, I knock others down and stand alone. I can throw somebody over the rim and into the bench. I can make my team want it more with a good hit.

Even in the NHL there are better and worse players, some get less space, some get more, but everyone has to know what their strength is and when and how to show it. Everybody has his own thing that he is good for his team.

In my case, that's what got me into the NHL. Everybody knows what kind of player I am over the years, and they expect me to hit somebody and not be afraid to drop the gloves. At the same time, it's up to me to get better year after year and continue to surprise everyone. Hockey is evolving and I have to evolve with it.

Radko Gudas, ice hockey

Every summer I continue to prepare with my dad, but every time we have to make some adjustments. I mean, when I came to the NHL, I was 102 kilos. Now I'm ninety-three. If I keep playing like I did then, I'm not in the league anymore. We're moving from the era of the big guys to hockey full of speed and small, agile guys. I have to adapt to that. I have to work on my agility and stamina, which I'm doing to play at all. And even though I had the most hits last season among the backs, I rarely get to shoot anyone in the middle of the field anymore; ninety-five percent of my hits come at the rim.

It doesn't happen much anymore that I get hit directly, and the league protects creative players. Even the ones who don't expect to be annihilated by someone running up the middle. A few years back, I stood up to a guy like that who bumped his head into my crotch the way he had it low, and I still got out for assault on the head. All I was doing was standing. Was I supposed to duck him?

Under the current rules, I guess so.

Hockey is going in the direction of increasing the number of goals, every year they make minor rule adjustments to get as many as possible while decreasing the pure hits and fights. It's not as much of a hustle on the ice anymore, more of a fast paced tactical game. It's up to me to accept that if I'm going to continue to be a part of it. I'm not gonna leave the NHL because I want to crash. I'd rather keep up with the times. I'm evolving as a hockey player to stay on the right side of the edge. I've got to wait more for a chance to hit somebody, be more patient. I have to play with my head more than my body.

But still, if someone drives by my boards and thinks they're just going to produce, I'm not going to duck.

Because, boys, the stronger dog ****. That's still the same.
And yes, "Stronger dog f%^@#s" is a classic Czech saying...

The article has these links to the fights he talks about:



and



and

faftorial
Posts: 16013
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Translated (Czech) hockey interviews

Post by faftorial »

Boo Gudas.
Tomas
Posts: 3444
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews

Post by Tomas »

(from Czech "Without Cliches" website. Very long story. No link to PIttsburgh - just a really cool personal story.)

Radim Vrbata: "Professional"


Czech original with some cool pics:
https://www.bezfrazi.cz/pribehy/radim-v ... rofesional



or very good deep-learning translation through DEEPL.COM of the full article:
Professional
Radim Vrbata ice hockey


With a minute left, we were up by two goals and Buffalo called the goalie off. That was the exact moment for the coach to say my name. He sent me on the ice to enjoy the ending.

That's what you do. A player whose game is special for some reason gets a chance to play one last shift in a tie game and maybe even get a shot on empty net. And it was really special for me tonight.

I was playing my last game in the NHL.

I jumped over the line like I've done a thousand times before and tried not to do anything rash. The flow of events found me on its own. The opponent shot, our backhand blocked the shot, and the puck flew through the air and made its way to me on the left boards. Buffalo's defenseman wanted to hold the blue line against me, so I thought I'd just tap the puck past him from a volley and knock it into the empty net myself.

Wow, that would be the end of my career. When I started on the wing in Colorado alongside Joe Sakic and Milan Hejduk, I had two assists in my first start. So now I'm gonna end it all with a bang.

Last shift, last touch of the puck and a goal...

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

By early summer 2016, I could see myself packing it in. My previous season in Vancouver was one of those where you can't find too many positives. It was simply bad. In terms of my usage in the lineup and points scored. I went from sixty-three the year before to twenty-seven. Thirty-one goals to thirteen.

I was getting on in years, and with three kids, I certainly wouldn't have had to wonder what to do to keep myself occupied, but there was still a nagging feeling in me that I didn't want to end up in such a strange state of mind. I believed that if I could be used in the right situations, I still had some good hockey left in me. And then the Coyotes came calling. Again. A club that trusted me for the third time at the right time, and I showed what I could do in their jersey.

I came back for the third time.

Radim Vrbata, ice hockey

We didn't make the playoffs that season, it wasn't a miraculous season, but from a personal point of view, twenty goals and fifty-five points was a result above expectations. Once again, in my case, everything clicked into place. That's why I already felt during the year that it would be a shame not to continue. I had the idea of extending my contract in Arizona, but this plan quickly fell through after the change in management. But there was interest in me in the league, and because my family was in favor of it, I signed another one-year contract in Florida. With the understanding that it was definitely the last one.

I played for the Panthers at first and was used a lot. Just like I agreed with the manager beforehand. Still, I soon learned that it wasn't going to be like it had been in Arizona, which also had a young team, but Martin Hanzal, Shane Doan and I were the leaders. Here, I came somewhere where there was already a core of six, seven young guys that the team would build on for the next ten years. I was just an older, experienced addition, a piece to the puzzle. That's the way I felt about it, I just found out that the style the Panthers play isn't exactly ideal for a thirty-six-year-old player who likes to be on the puck. It was flying up and down.

Still, after twelve games, I had ten points. I took it more as a coincidence than a realistic reflection of my play and feel on the ice, but it was clearly a good thing. However, in mid-November, I was unluckily hit in the face by a puck during my first shift in Los Angeles, which gave me a concussion. As I was getting back into it after a two-week break, a strange virus took hold of me around Christmas and I didn't get out of bed for ten days. By the time I got back into shape, the team was winning after a poor start to the season. The young guys who got a chance were doing well.

When I came back, the coaches were looking for a way to get me on a team that worked. That's when I did something I wouldn't have done for a few years - maybe even the year before.

I told them not to worry about me.

Let them keep the lineup that was thriving and that they believed was the strongest one currently. Let the guys who are in shape come to the games, and most importantly, let the team keep the winning streak going. I will keep training to be ready to jump in if someone drops out or a change is needed. I didn't push the envelope. I was aware of the situation I was in. That I'm at the very end no matter what, and after two blowouts this season, I felt that the younger players would help the team more than I would. It didn't make sense for them to favor me just because I had already played some games.

I saw myself when I was 20. I also didn't like that I had to leave the lineup for someone more experienced, even though I knew I could play better at that moment.

Even at the stage of my career I was at, it wasn't easy to admit that someone was currently better. I have my pride. But also not so big an ego that I would make trouble and complain just because I'm not playing. Rather, it was time to look in the mirror and be honest with myself.

I got over it. I figured at least I'd be helping the youth.

This phrase is used a lot and has become a favorite incantation of older players who no longer have such a prominent role. Helping the younger ones... I'm definitely not the type to go to someone and correct them on what to do. If someone asked me, I was happy to give them advice that worked for myself, but otherwise I didn't push myself anywhere. My help consisted of something else.

I tried to lead by example.

After every NHL practice, a group of guys who are currently out of the lineup, often young guys waiting for their chance, stay on the ice longer. They also have extra conditioning skating to compensate for the lack of game time.

They are undergoing an unfun, exhausting drill.


The coaches made me feel that it was a little silly to let a guy skate there who has played over a thousand games in the league and is done after the season. Especially assistant Paul McFarland, a thirty-two year old guy who had never played in the NHL, was visibly uncomfortable with it, which I understood. He sometimes tried to make me feel better about not having to go through all this work, but I told him that I was still one of the team first and foremost, and I just wasn't playing right now, so I'd do what everyone else was doing. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to look them in the eyes in the booth. I went on the ice even on days off when I had to shoot on goalies, I spent time during games with the others in the gym and I tried to do everything the way I was supposed to. I was trying to help the coaches and show the youngsters that this is also necessary. Also to show them that if a thirty-six year old dude can handle the poisoning, they won't complain at twenty.

I can imagine the players who would demand relief in my place and would do badly if they didn't get it. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have been so above it myself a few years back. I've always wanted to be an important part of the team, spend as much time on the ice as possible, play in crucial game situations and have responsibility. But of course I've also experienced situations and teams where I didn't play as much as I thought I should have, and I looked at them differently than I do now.

At this point, though, I mostly didn't want to ruin my name by being an dadhole for the last few months of my career. Like I was something more.

I'm not gonna lie. Of course, I had to force myself into all those skating sessions and gyms. They were killing me internally, I couldn't even think of them as something I was doing with a view to keeping fit for my next seasons. There were moments when I thought that maybe it would be better if I quit right then and there and not prolong the misery. Not because I was angry, it was more like I was sick of taking money just to train. That's not why they signed me this summer. I felt I had nothing left to give the team anyway, so why not shake hands and say goodbye.

But it's not what's going on inside you that's important, it's what you show on the outside to others. And in the end I always said to myself that it's important what I give to the surroundings, how I'm perceived in the club. The reality, after all, was that the Florida Panthers were paying me to be ready and do what was asked of me, no matter what stage I was in personally.

To be a true professional.

Because that's what it means to be a hockey player, too. That's how I see professionalism. The club hires you to be at their disposal and they use you as they see fit.

In the end, I'm glad I found the strength to stick it out until the very end and behave as my duties dictated. After all, I perceived that this is what the people around me in the NHL appreciated me for the last few years.

It all came back to me one night in April.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&


My coach came to me a week beforehand to ask me what I would say about the possibility of my return to the lineup for the last home game of the regular season, since we are not going to win anything. By that time I had been a healthy scratch for a month, but we agreed that I would discuss it with my wife at home and let her know. I don't consider myself to be a very important figure in the history of the NHL, so I didn't feel the need to publicly announce anything about the end of my career in advance, only people around the team knew about my decision. Moreover, Florida was still in the playoff race until the last day and it was quite possible that we would make it to the playoffs and I might still be playing great games at a good pace in a few days. That's why my eventual farewell was quickly delayed again. But on Saturday morning, when the game with Buffalo was coming up, my coach and I said that I would prepare as if I was going to start tonight. The situation was such that if Philadelphia wins against the Rangers in the afternoon game, we will lose our chance to advance.

And I'll go to the game.

After lunch, I sat in front of the TV at home, and when the Flyers were up 4-0 after two periods and it was clear they weren't going to lose this one, I laid down. I fell asleep knowing that tonight would be the last time I would ever play in the NHL.

The whole thing had special meaning for me, if only because it was April 7th. The date my dad died, which I wrote about in my previous story. But don't expect a scene where all the experiences of the past seventeen years flashed before my eyes. In fact, I'd had that almost continuously for the previous two years.

Even after returning to Arizona, where I originally thought I was playing my last season, I initially told myself in almost every city we flew into that I would never see NHL hockey there again. It was most intense in Denver, the home of Colorado. On the way from the airport to the hotel, I remembered how I started there. Just looking out the window at the many places I have associated with feelings, images from the past. Far from just hockey ones. I mean, I first came there when I was 18.

Ever since I moved to Florida, all this nostalgia has started all over again. This time for good.

Suddenly, I was parked in the lobby, putting on my gear, stepping on the ice for warm-ups, sitting on the bench, slapping gloves with my teammates in the locker room, hearing the coach's speech, and knowing that... This was the last time. It's hard to describe, because at that moment everything around you looks ordinary, just like it always does, and I kept telling myself that I had to play it on the level in the first place. It wasn't a big deal anymore, but it was still an NHL game that I jumped into after a month. I had to do my best not to be a jerk there. Hockey-wise, it was still a bust, but my wife and my boys got to see me on the ice one more time.

And that's something I'm grateful for.


At the first commercial break, my coach sent me on the ice and a medallion celebrating my career was played on the cube. I've always enjoyed ceremonies like this, I loved being there when someone else could enjoy an award for a milestone, an exceptional achievement or when they were saying goodbye. But just like the year before at the thousandth game in Arizona, I suddenly didn't feel comfortable being the one in charge, the center of everything. I certainly didn't enjoy those moments as much as I should have.

People were standing, clapping, other guys were high-fiving me, and I just wanted to give a quick wave to everyone and say good, we're going to play again.

My opponent, Jason Pominville, was the first to arrive. A guy I used to play with back in junior at Shawinigan. And every other Buffalo player that came up against me for the rest of the game congratulated me on my career. Respect for those who have played is a natural part of the NHL environment. Most players don't end up having a stellar season, at their peak. They always go downhill in performance, yet they are respected by those around them for how long they lasted. That was the case with me.

After the game, the coach and the general manager gave me a speech right in the locker room, and so did the guys. Captain Derek MacKenzie spoke first, then the others came up one by one to shake my hand and give me the gifts they got me for the booth. Then they all mentioned what I mentioned a few lines above.

They appreciated how professional I was. How I had handled the situation I had gotten myself into in the last few weeks of my career. The management and my teammates told me how much they appreciated me for that.

Radim Vrbata, ice hockey

That's what really warmed me up. I was able to feel it to the fullest.

The team flew to Boston right away for a game that was moved to the very end of the winter because of a snowstorm, but I wasn't involved. So I didn't have to rush anywhere and went home with my family in peace. When my wife and kids went to bed, I flopped down on the sofa, tuned in to the NHL channel, watched highlights of the games just played and said to myself: "Okay. That's it."

That's when it clicked for me. It was at that moment that I realized what the older players always used to say. That it's only at the very end that you realise how quickly it's all gone by. When you're in the merry-go-round and you know that you still have five or six years of your career ahead of you, you don't see the end coming. You see the sea of struggles ahead of you, all the hard work and travel.

And, yeah, it's really flown by.

There's a lot of work behind it, every season has been tremendously demanding, which is something that nobody who hasn't experienced it can imagine, but ultimately those years really kind of flew by and suddenly they were gone.

At least I was ready for the end. That it was my own decision that I was internally at peace with. Me, the Sedin brothers and Patrick Sharp were four veterans who had made it well in advance. But I knew that during the summer we would be joined by others who would be forced by circumstance. The fact that no one would sign them anymore. That's a far worse ending. You want to play, you train all summer, you expect what's coming, and then you find out that there's no more interest, you don't get a contract anywhere.

That's a much harder blow to deal with.

Still, I didn't stay completely above it either. For the next few days, I had a jammed phone. A number of people wrote, and I was genuinely pleased that they'd responded. It was because of them that I was suddenly forced to think about my end far more than I had originally thought. It was only these responses appreciating my career, my achievements and me as a person that made it all a moving affair for me.

Although during the season I thought that I was ready with everything and nothing could upset me, I realized that I was not, I still had a lot to absorb. More than I expected.

Radim Vrbata, ice hockey

The messages came gradually, I always found a moment to read them and reply.

It was this, the reactions of other people, players who have achieved a lot, or people from the Czech Republic who have been cheering for me all the time, that showed me what I had left behind in the NHL. They were there the year before after I played my thousandth game, and this time they left intense feelings behind.

It was beautiful to read them.

I've been having moments here and there ever since. Experiences. Feelings. The joy of victories. Plane rides. Dinners with the boys on trips. Arriving at the hotel at 3am when there's a game to prepare for the next day. The broken wake-up calls when your body is screaming at you that it's beat and exhausted, and you have to get back to the rink. Glimpses that show what it takes to make it to the NHL and last sixteen years. To go season after season and maintain your standard.

I'll also mentally tick off some nice goals or situations for myself. I will realize what difficult moments I overcame, even though I thought I really couldn't do it. And I also keep coming back to situations where I didn't give a good chance, I catch myself replaying in my head what I should have done differently, before shouting to myself that it doesn't matter anymore. That I don't have to worry about another missed empty net goal.

It's like when you wake up after school on a holiday and you know you have a tough test coming up.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

As the deadline for exchanges was approaching, that was far more important to me than a three-digit number of games played starting with 99.

In the spring of 2016, I was slowly approaching 1,000, but I didn't want to talk about it, lest I jinx something. I could have easily gotten injured or been sent to another club.

And I really wanted to celebrate the anniversary in Arizona. In an organization that means so much to me.

But they traded Martin Hanzal out of here at the end of February, and I was going to be next. My contract was up, I had good numbers and the team was out of the playoffs, so it was on the table. After the previous year in Vancouver, it didn't even occur to me to ask for a no-trade clause in the contract negotiations, guaranteeing that they can't send you elsewhere without your consent. Who would want me too, right... Before with the Canucks, I knew I was given eight clubs to go to, but here, if I were to move, I wouldn't be in control. Merit or sentiment doesn't come into play at a time like this, if the Coyotes got a good offer, they'd just tell me where I was going.

And after Hanzi headed to Minnesota, it became very real.

But the club got two high draft picks for him and historically had a lot of good young guys drafted, so they didn't need to send me away at any cost. It wouldn't have made sense to take a fourth or fifth round pick or another ready-made player for me. They'd rather keep me and Shane Doan, who was in a similar situation, so that the season would have some kind of honor and not just be about the young guys.

Still, every morning for the last few days I've been waking up looking at my phone to see if something was wrong. A good offer could have come to management at any time. We had a practice in Buffalo on the day of the trade deadline. Deadline was at 3 p.m., our practice started at 1 p.m., and I attended it in uncertainty. I could feel all the cameras on me, snapping pictures for the TV news of the players most talked about in connection with a possible trade. After practice, I waited in the locker room for another hour until three in case something did happen.

But there was no phone call.

Radim Vrbata, ice hockey

So I went back to my hotel room and realized that I could finally start preparing for what was going to happen around my thousandth game. I had one week to go. We started to definitively work out the celebration dinner and maybe the arrival of my brother and his family to celebrate.

First the six-hundredth career point, then trade speculation, then the thousandth game... That's when a lot happened in a few weeks. I felt like I was the center of the action around the team, which was not something I was comfortable with, not something I craved. So after dinner at the local golf club, sitting and chatting with my brother and the older guys who may have quit but gotten a place in Phoenix, I suddenly felt tremendously relieved.

It's finally gonna be quiet again.

I invited the whole team to the party, which is normal, but also all the staff around, including the assistant custodians and the radio and club media people. A lot of them came up to me during the evening to thank me. They said it was the first time they had been invited to such an event. It seemed logical to me to show them that I appreciated them and that they were part of my career.

I told my young teammates right after the official part prepared by the club that it was clear to me that they were ready to go out and that I thanked them for coming and that they didn't have to disappear in secret. After all, I used to be exactly the same.

But on this night after the Detroit game, when the ceremony took place, I was more pleased than ever with how wonderfully everything came together. That I could still spend these moments as a Coyotes player, and not play my thousandth game somewhere I was traded to a week ago.

This place was pivotal to my career. It's where I definitely became who I am today.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&


I remember exactly how we were free-circling before the start of the warm-ups in the training hall in Phoenix. Peripherally, I saw assistant coach Ulf Samuelsson coming towards me, and I thought to myself that he was going to tell me how bad I was doing, what I was doing wrong, and that my position in the lineup was going to get weaker. That's what I was used to from previous engagements. Mostly, I wouldn't be surprised. I played a lot and didn't score nearly as many goals as I should have.

"You're playing great, Wayne's happy, keep it up..."

What? What?

That was something I'd never heard in the NHL before. Certainly not in the situation I was in. They were exactly the words I needed. In the next few games, I suddenly started putting it out there. That's when, in that moment, everything turned in the right direction. Because the previous years I was constantly going to video analysis where my deficiencies were shown and individual coaches were telling me what not to do or what to do differently.

Wayne Gretzky, the best hockey player in history, who was the head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes when I first got there, had a completely different approach. He wanted me to play my best. He was the guy who helped fundamentally take my career to a level that I believed in myself and expected of myself.

Radim Vrbata, ice hockey

I already had a period in Chicago when I played with Martin Havlat and Michal Handzus and we were great together. But both guys got injured early. I also had a great start at the very beginning in Colorado, where I was playing with some amazing players and thought I was going to be the second Milan Hejduk. But I fell victim to the fact that Colorado was basically an all-star team at the time, and they sacrificed me as a youngster to bring in another experienced player in order to attack the Stanley Cup. It didn't work in Carolina, especially when they changed coaches, and Chicago in general wasn't the attractive team years ago that it is now. I felt like a pawn on the chessboard. I was sent here and there and everywhere the coaches tried to change me. It wasn't until Phoenix that I could suddenly be myself.

Thanks to him and especially Gretzky, I have 1,057 games, 623 points, 284 goals.

Is that a lot?

Is it not enough?

I'll let everyone evaluate that for themselves and put it in historical context. I myself appreciate the number of games the most, only a little over three hundred players in the entire history of the NHL got over a thousand games. When you last that long, there must be a reason. Still, in all respects, you can find Czech hockey players who have accomplished far more than I have.

But there are also many who haven't achieved what I have.

I took it that the numbers at the end of each season are a true picture of it. There were times when things didn't go well, and times when everything went with ease. But at the end, everything was underlined and added up and the result gave the overall impression of the season. It's the same with careers. There have been bad years and there have been perfect years. And the overall situation shows the mark I left in the best competition in the world. It'll always be traceable in my statistical scorecard.

But then there's another thing. Human relationships.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm a father of three, but the older I got, the more important it became to me how those around me reacted to me. It warms my heart to hear those who have worked with me speak of me. That they talk about me as a true professional. I've been through more clubs, but I know that no matter where I go back to, in most cases people are happy to see me and I'm happy to see them. It won't be like, "Wow, what's he doing here..." I'm convinced I've never been a jerk anywhere. At the same time, there are players who have scored a lot of points, had amazing careers, but they're known to have been less than ideal teammates. I've tried to leave behind a reputation that is far more satisfying than all the stats. Because your numbers will always be surpassed. Sooner or later there's gonna be someone who scores more goals and picks up more points.

But you only have one reputation. It stays.

Sure, you don't have to get along with everyone everywhere. There's 30 different characters and personalities in the locker room, coaches, management, people around the team. But as a professional, you have to know what you can afford to do and respect who you have. You do the things they ask you to do.

At the same time, from a playing standpoint, I've always been able to hold my own, my little bit of specialness that has kept me in the league. I didn't let them change me, even though they wanted me to early in my career. They tried to force me to play with more body, but I quickly realized what made me different from the average and what I could excel at. I'm proud that I stayed true to myself and clearly knew what I could do to break through. A lot of guys come into the NHL with a gloriole of scorers and creative players and get molded into defensive types. Then five years later they're out of the league.

I endured the first half of my career and things that often seemed like obvious wrongs, but I was still able to work through them. I then benefited from that in the second half, reaping the rewards for my patience and maintaining my own direction. At the same time, I hope I was able to learn from my mistakes, because sooner or later those who repeat them also fly.

I was always overwhelmingly happy with the goals that defined my usefulness, but more likely just internally. I didn't show it so much, because along with the feeling of happiness came relief. Relief that I had accomplished what I was on the team for. If I was scoring goals, I was doing what I was supposed to do. This feeling for me was far more intense than the simple ecstasy of outdoing someone on the other team.

But I was going to enjoy that last goal.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Sometimes things don't happen according to the scenario we dream up. Certainly not at a hockey game.

I hit a flying puck the way I intended. "No one's going to catch me now," flashed through my mind at that moment as I was about to kick it in and write a stylish goal marker for my career.

But the puck wasn't going where it was supposed to. Millimeters. Millimeters short of the all-time great.

To keep that damn black piece of rubber from flying over the Plexiglas between the spectators.

Instead of a breakaway ending in a comfortable shot into an empty net, I turned towards the penalty box. In my last NHL substitution, I went to the bench for two minutes for holding up play. As I settled into the bench, I laughed. What else. My eyes wandered across the field to our bench. The boys were laughing just as hard.

But it wasn't a mockery of the kid who was already in the way. It was an expression of camaraderie.

Damn that goal. That's the one I'm gonna miss the most.

Tomas
Posts: 3444
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews

Post by Tomas »

(from Czech "Without Cliches" website. Very long story. No link to PIttsburgh - just a really cool personal story. About a guy who really does not like hockey that much...)

I'm not into hockey.

It must sound ugly coming from a player who makes such a good living at it, but I really don't care. I don't watch NHL games at home, I don't even have sports channels in America. And I don't care much about the World Cup either. I only watch the games where the guys are up to something, and that's usually over a beer and with one eye anyway.

I haven't had that young kid's desire to live hockey from morning to night for a while now. I just think of hockey as a job anymore, which is increasingly demanding on my body and psyche. I know it's coming to an end.

But I'm lucky to have such a great wife. She's even less interested in hockey than I am, so we complement each other perfectly. She came to see me play in Dallas twice last season, and that was just because of our little kids.

I'm totally fine with that.

I absolutely cannot understand that some of my teammates have women who even understand hockey. Or worse, women who think they understand hockey. They come home from a game and hear that they should have played more, why they didn't shoot when they could have, and so on.

If I had to deal with that at home, my head would explode. I'd feel like I'm bringing my work and my worries home. And I wouldn't be happy.




Roman Polak: "They called me, again"


Czech original with some cool pics:
https://www.bezfrazi.cz/pribehy/roman-p ... i-zavolali

or very good deep-learning translation through DEEPL.COM of the full article:
I got another call
Roman Polák ice hockey

To this day, I still don't know how I thought of such a stupid idea.

Halfway through the fourth playoff game against Washington, I rushed forward and tried to get around Brooks Orpik on the blue line. I did things I shouldn't have done on the ice.

I wanted to attack.

One of the toughest guys in the league, of course, didn't mess with me at all. He took me out at full speed with his shoulder and spun me up in the air. I landed on my foot and heard two dull thuds. I knew right away that this was going to be very bad.

This was the biggest win of my career.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Even Alois Hadamczik said about me in 2014 before the Sochi Olympics that I was a defender who could only break Plexiglas with his opponents. And that such hockey is useless nowadays.

I can't hide the fact that I was very angry with him at the time. I was twenty-eight years old and felt myself at the absolute peak of my sporting powers. I had a lot of confidence in myself and was looking forward to going to my second Olympics. The year before, I had gone to the Euro Hockey Tour in the NHL lockout, which I honestly didn't want to go to. It was just before Christmas, which my family and I were able to enjoy at home in the Czech Republic after a long strike, and I got an invitation to Moscow a week before Christmas Eve. I went there just to see if I could participate in Sochi. I wanted to check in with the coach and let him know that he was counting on me. I think that both the Czech journalists and the coach himself gave me a pretty positive evaluation.

But a year later the nomination came and my name wasn't on it.

I didn't have any hints before that, I only found out from the press conference. It was shortly after lunchtime in America and my phone started beeping with texts from family and friends.

I chewed the message really badly. I was convinced that I belonged on the Czech Olympic team.

Roman Polák, ice hockey

In retrospect, I have to admit that it was one of the most important moments of my career. It made me realise that I couldn't worry my head so much about hockey.

He built and selected his team with a coach who had the right to do so. Is there anything to say about that?

With that mindset, I've returned to America to play NHL hockey at the end of every summer since. I've realized that the moment when people in the business lose interest in a hockey player and don't give a damn about him will come one way or another in everyone's career.

We players are just commodities to be traded.

And so I started approaching hockey the same way. I'm still trying to be an absolute pro who goes all out in practice. My character wouldn't let me slack off. But at the same time, I've been a person who does what he wants to do in his own way for a long time.

Just as I was once indifferent to the league, the NHL is now indifferent to me.

When it comes down to it, I'll go play hockey in Poruba, where I started as a kid. I think it would be quite nice for that club. This setup has taken me a step further as a person. I stopped being disillusioned by failures, sad when I failed. I've become a person who goes with his own direction and flow and doesn't care what others think. A person who comes home from work to his family, ragged, but happy and relaxed.

I'm not into hockey.

It must sound ugly coming from a player who makes such a good living at it, but I really don't care. I don't watch NHL games at home, I don't even have sports channels in America. And I don't care much about the World Cup either. I only watch the games where the guys are up to something, and that's usually over a beer and with one eye anyway.

I haven't had that young kid's desire to live hockey from morning to night for a while now. I just think of hockey as a job anymore, which is increasingly demanding on my body and psyche. I know it's coming to an end.

But I'm lucky to have such a great wife. She's even less interested in hockey than I am, so we complement each other perfectly. She came to see me play in Dallas twice last season, and that was just because of our little kids.

I'm totally fine with that.

I absolutely cannot understand that some of my teammates have women who even understand hockey. Or worse, women who think they understand hockey. They come home from a game and hear that they should have played more, why they didn't shoot when they could have, and so on.

If I had to deal with that at home, my head would explode. I'd feel like I'm bringing my work and my worries home. And I wouldn't be happy.

I'm already completely wrung out at the end of every season from the roller coaster of games. Mentally and physically, I'm completely done with hockey by the beginning of the summer. It takes me a few weeks and a lot of beers to clear my head, ask myself what I would actually do, and eventually find the strength within myself to keep going.

That's why I don't go to the World Championships and I've been thankfully refusing the Czech national team for a year now. The moment the NHL season is over, I don't even want to see hockey. I don't have the energy for it.

When I think back to the Stanley Cup finals I played in a few years back with San Jose after being traded from Toronto, they are not great memories. It normally makes me physically sick. We played hockey until June 13 and didn't win anything. We suffered three months longer than everyone else, played a game a day and still finished second, which means absolutely nothing in the NHL. It was a terrible feeling.

That Finals loss still pisses me off to this day for that very reason.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I realize there aren't many defensemen like me left in the NHL today. I've been hearing from all sides for years that guys like that don't belong in the league.

People say that I can't skate, that I don't have a good faceoff, and so on and so forth. But try asking players across teams if they're comfortable playing against me. And if they want to go to the boards with me. They'll tell you no.

I know this for a fact. I can feel it from my opponents every game.

I haven't scored many goals in my career, and I don't get assists regularly. But at the end of every season, you're guaranteed to find around 300 hits in my stats.

I've built my NHL career, which has been uninterrupted for fourteen years, on hard work, dedication and simplicity. My opponents know this all too well. All I have to do is hit first in a game and I'm at an advantage, and I'm benefiting from it until the end.

They'd rather let that fool in the crease have the puck.

And for me, that's pretty much the end of the job. In the NHL, I've established myself as a player who's supposed to defend the opponent's best offense. The moment I get the puck and make a play, I'm off to make a substitution as fast as I can.

I'm also one of the last guys in the league today who doesn't play with a blindfold over his eyes. I was forced to do it by my teammates back when I played for St. Louis. Normally, they'd come up to me and say: Please, Roman, you can't wear Plexiglas with the hockey you play.

They said I'm the one who's supposed to be breaking it down on the ice, and I look really bad with Plexiglas. I had to work on my tough guy image at the urging of my teammates.

Roman Polák, ice hockey

The league rules don't allow it anymore. It's mandatory for players to wear eye protection on their helmets. The only exception is us, who managed to take it off in time.

I gotta knock, too: I've stayed out of trouble my whole career with this style. I got my first disciplinary penalty after 650 games in the NHL, a two-game suspension. In Columbus, I leaned into a kid who was head first into the boards and got a concussion.

It was an unintentional collision, which in retrospect I regret a lot. It doesn't look like it, but I have a lot of respect for opposing players. There were plenty of situations where I could have literally nailed someone in the corner with my weight. But I always try to brake in front of them and handle it differently. Hockey is a job where I would really hate to hurt someone.

Off the ice, I'm a completely different person who tries to handle everything with a smile. Make fun of life, make light of a lot of things. In recent years, I feel like that's my role in the locker room as well: to clean up the tense atmosphere.

I throw jokes in the direction of the coaches and I have to admit that sometimes they don't work.

Sometimes I touch them.

And yet they get me.

I find this fulfilling. As long as I feel valid to the team and feel that the guys around me, including the coach, like me, I like coming to work. And maybe that's why I'm still so valued in the league.

I add value to my team that just isn't seen as much.

My job in Dallas is to mentor young players. Guys come into the league today and they don't have that humility. They come in with a confidence that may be healthy, but it's also too much sometimes. I'm on the team to sit them down and help them find their place and respect on the ice. To show them that even if you can't do it, you have to want to work hard and play for the team. Not for yourself and the name on your back. But for the team. I was born this way and I take it as my duty to pass it on to the younger ones.

Nobody expects me to score 70 points in a season. Even the coaches think of me as a kid who doesn't get pissed off if he gets cut from the lineup. And he doesn't screw up when he's put back in after a while.

Roman Polák, ice hockey

But don't be fooled: It certainly doesn't mean I'll settle for any explanation.

An incident in Toronto comes to mind, where I got into a slight exchange with coach Mike Babcock. It was at the beginning of the season, preceding my Stanley Cup final in San Jose and then the World Cup.

I arrived at the Maple Leafs booth before the first game and I wasn't on the roster. I went to see the coach right away.

"You Mike, what's going on? Why am I not playing?"
"You know Roman, there are two young guys here, they were better than you in camp and they're fighting for a spot."
"Well, it's obvious they were better than me."

I'll explain it to you here: Coaches like to tell the media that everyone has the same starting position at the beginning of camp. Don't believe it. It's not true. And at the time, Mike Babcock knew that.

"You know, at 31, I'm going into camp at something like 70 percent. I played in the league finals until June, now I'm here from the World Cup, and all of a sudden I don't fit into the Maple Leafs lineup at the expense of two young guys?"
"You're right, Roman, it sounds weird."

Mike Babcock is a specific coach, but I've never had a problem with him. He has a lot of experience and he doesn't like to be talked into the job. If I was younger, I probably would have laid my ears back then and gone. But I felt internally that in two or three games at the latest, he'd come to me and I'd be playing again.

And that's what happened.

He told me I was going back in the lineup. And he asked me if there was any bad blood between us.

Why on earth would there be?

I think it's because of the way I take this that I'm so popular in Dallas today. I realized my role. And I even came to our coach myself so I wouldn't have to play so much. A lot of players in the NHL are chasing ice time to be busy and to be seen.

I know that in order to be able to play my full hockey, I can only play eighteen minutes at most.

My hockey is built on collision, braking and a few quick starts. If I know I'm going to play around twenty-five minutes on first defense and basically not come off the ice, I won't make that extra curve somewhere and subconsciously save. Because even a hit costs an awful lot of strength.

Roman Polák, ice hockey

I'm not kidding anyone by not wanting to play that much. I want to help the team to always have the best Roman Polak on the ice.

Our coach has already understood that. We even laugh about it together.

When I look at the last few years, I'm happy with myself. If I was on fire every year and had a minus 20 in my stats, I wouldn't say an inch. But I'm a downright defensive back deployed on the opponent's best players and I can still be in the black at the end of the season.

I'm confident I'm doing my job well. I'm playing good hockey.

Yet back in my late 30s, after I moved to Toronto, I first heard opinions that a back like me had no business being in the NHL for a long time. The fans in Toronto like offensive hockey and I kept hearing from the outside that they wanted to see something completely different. Nobody ever said I was an "old school back" to my face. Not even the pundits who kept writing these things and arguing that I had a bad Corsi. Coach Babcock blew them off at the press conference saying he didn't care. That every player's contribution to the team is key.

The guys in the locker room have been making fun of me ever since. I didn't even know what a Corsi was.

I googled it on my phone, but to this day I still don't understand the graphs and numbers. It's a statistic that's been quite popular overseas lately. It was invented by some substitute goalie who went to the net once in a while and cursed the opponents for shooting at him a lot. Corsi is a measure of whether a team is under pressure when a particular player is on the ice.

But every stat should be used to the team's advantage, not used to deliberately throw players off and hurt them. After all, for every hockey player, you can find a figure that you can beat over his head. For me, it's this corsi, which logically I will never have a positive one.

In the vast majority of cases, I start my on-ice rotations in the defensive zone with a simple coach's assignment: defend, spread, rotate. I automatically go on the ice the moment the opponent attacks.

Every theory has its cracks.

Roman Polák, ice hockey

If Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon or Mikko Rantanen come at you, you still have no chance against them.

Every team has specific strategies to defend these guys. Simply put, the forwards have to find them in the mid-zone already, with the expectation that they will try to slow them down in any way possible. Just get in their way, force them to make a stupid extra arc. So the defenders can't come at us full speed.

If it doesn't work, it doesn't matter who skates fast. Because we backs face these dudes and nobody can skate backwards with them. You can't do that, they'll make your day.

The NHL today is a lot different than it used to be.

There used to be guys in the league - real brawlers. All I had to do was knock somebody down and I knew the next shift I was going to get three guys who didn't care about the puck. There's nobody in the league today that I have to be afraid of.

I don't know if I liked the hockey of those days, but I definitely enjoyed it more.

It could be because I was younger and more predatory. Now I'm in a situation with my style of play where every game I have to be aware of what I'm supposed to do, what I'm not supposed to do and what my role is on the team. That's simply why I don't make up any nonsense on the ice.

But everything is always intertwined and history repeats itself in some way. For a while people like technical hockey, for a while people like it when it cuts from the first minute. After all, that's how they used to win Stanley Cups in Los Angeles, not that long ago. They had a big, heavy team around Anže Kopitar. They were all more or less slow guys who broke things with brute force.

A couple of years have gone by, and suddenly speed is in vogue.

I believe that this trend may very well change again in five years.

It's not for nothing that the NHL is called a "copy-paste league". It seems to me it's all a bit of a case of where the wind blows, the cape blows. All it takes is for someone to succeed, and everyone else starts to follow suit. Pittsburgh used to win the league years ago with a fast team that just passed the puck around and tried to finish in the zone. Everybody automatically started copying that style, and in many cases it didn't matter that the teams didn't have the right types of players to play that way.

Also, a lot of them were downright fed up with it.

But this just goes to show how big a role journalists and analysts play in the NHL world. Success is built on whether each team's general managers stand up to their pressure, go their own way and trust their own team, or join the mainstream that's just in.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

To this day, I still don't understand why I decided to go solo over such a big, heavy guy in Washington that day.

Orpik didn't move. Within seconds, I was on the ground screaming in pain.

In all my years of playing hockey, I've never left the ice on a stretcher, and I wasn't about to change that even then. It's just set in my head and I would have felt downright stupid. That's why I stubbornly hopped off the ice on one foot that day. Then when the doctors in the booth sat me down for an x-ray, I stuck my finger in the bone near my knee.

Roman Polák, ice hockey "Doctor, is it really bad?"

The doctor got sick at the sight.

The leg was completely dead, but at that moment it didn't hurt at all. The adrenaline and the shock of what happened a few minutes ago at the blue line simply flushed my brain.

X-rays showed that my calf bone had twisted under the weight of my own body.

It snapped in seven places.

My style of play attracts injuries. My body's bought it everywhere in my career. Concussions, replacement teeth, dislocated and torn shoulders, broken collarbones, broken fingers, torn ligaments in the knee and ankle, broken ribs. I've been through it all. I also tore a stomach muscle... First one side farted, then the other. Simply pulling it loosened the muscle ending at the pubic bone. I felt in training and in games that my right side was weaker and it was quite painful. It felt like a hernia. It was playable though, so I didn't pay too much attention to it and went from game to game for a few weeks.

It wasn't until the end of the season that the other side of my muscle shot. By then the pain was terrible. I couldn't sleep at night, and my testicles hurt. The pain went from my abdomen to places where I wouldn't have expected it. All this at the time when my friend Zbyněk Irgl was diagnosed with a tumour on his kidney.

I'll tell you what: You know I was getting stressed. I was scared.

We hockey players definitely have a shifted pain threshold. You may have heard about how San Jose's Joe Thornton was able to play four playoff games with torn ligaments in his left knee. There are a few guys like that at the end of every season when it's all about everything. They just don't get talked about much. I threw a dislocated shoulder back in Los Angeles once and finished a game. I made it through 14 days in the NHL with a broken collarbone. To a normal person, it must be a completely incomprehensible thing.

But we've learned to live with the pain.

An injured player has no choice but to mentally prepare before a game. You've been saying over and over in your head since lunch that you mustn't think about the injury, that it just won't hurt tonight. In time, you'll find that this really works. That the brain can be fooled. And that it's the best solution.

Of course, there are injections. Team doctors don't exactly like that option. The injection turns off the pain completely, and increases the risk of the player unknowingly injuring the stricken area much worse. It's always better to play without them if you can. Just with pain that you just take as your own.

But learning to live with the pain of a leg broken seven times didn't go so well.

It started coming back when I got on the plane home from Washington with the team after that game.

Roman Polák, ice hockey

You probably know those feelings when you go on vacation. Sometimes the flight is totally fine, sometimes your ears hurt. But how many times do you feel like your head is going to explode because of the change in cabin pressure? That's exactly what I felt, only in that seven times broken haksna.

I was home alone in Toronto. My wife flew home to the Czech Republic with the kids before the playoffs and I had no one to take care of me. I just lay on the couch, staring at the wall, waiting for instructions from the hospital.

It took me two days to get to the operating room. The doctors were convinced that everything would go smoothly, but in the end they drilled me for almost six hours. They put fifteen titanium screws in my leg, thirteen of which will remain in my bone for the rest of my life.

The first minutes after waking up from anesthesia were crazy.

The doctors were pouring morphine into me. When you're 110 pounds, not many other painkillers work. The morphine came out of the drip and went straight into my veins. One dose every five minutes.

For the first time in my life, I started asking myself: Is it worth it, dude?

I was internally convinced that my NHL career was over. And that this was the right way to do it. Believe me, that broken leg hurt like hell. I was begging my sister to give me more morphine.

I was holding a button in my hand that I could push into my own vein. I pressed it desperately, but the system wouldn't allow more than one dose in five minutes. I was in danger of farting my heart out or suffocating. The substance can make you so calm you forget to breathe.

I had morphine in my veins for a week, and when I got out of the hospital, I started taking pills and I felt something was wrong with me. I started to not care about anything. I was sitting in my apartment and skyping home with my wife, but I wasn't in the mood for her or the kids. I didn't want to see them or talk to them.

The moment I closed the computer, it hit me. How is it possible that I haven't seen them in a month and I'm not sad at all? Isn't that weird? The more I thought about it, the more I **** myself up and stressed out. The morphine changed me beyond recognition.

I went off it immediately and started shaking. I got the withdrawal that heroin junkies get. Cold, body aches and sweat.

Absolutely insane.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The man I owe the fact that I'm still playing in the NHL today to is Lou Lamoriello.

I consider myself a laid back guy who is ready for his career to be over. The screwed up leg was the first serious impetus that really made me think realistically about quitting. For four months - the whole summer - I was just walking around on crutches in the Czech Republic. The only thing I could do was go to the pub in my village home, lugging a leg icing machine and drinking beer. My wife had two small children at home and I was the third.

Is it worth it to you?

The question rang through my head more and more.

Roman Polák, ice hockey

The impetus to continue was ultimately myself. I wanted to prove to myself that I would never accept the opinion of the doctors who didn't give me much hope.

When the free agent market opened on the first of July, I was lying at home leaning on my crutches, unable to answer a simple question for each team: Will you be ready for the start of the season? The furthest I got was talking to Nashville executives. But when I showed them my medical report, they questioned whether I would ever walk normally. Let alone play hockey.

It was the first time I'd ever heard the perspective of a doctor other than the one who operated on me. Contract negotiations with the Predators broke down and I was completely screwed: I'm not gonna be a bum my whole life, I gotta do something about it! I started going on the ice in Frýdek-Místek. Marek Malik was training us and I couldn't even make a turn. I was skating straight on the ice.

Fifty minutes a day and under pain pills.

Doctors used to say to rest the leg. I think the opposite. The more it was stressed, the more blood flowed to it, and I felt it was getting better every day. I also started going to a clinic in Hrabyně where they fix people up after serious car accidents. There they taught me to walk again so that my foot would be right and my muscles would heal. Except for the achilles, everything in my leg was broken, along with the crushed bone.

Camps for the new season started on the 14th of September. I remember that exactly. Two days before, my wife and I were returning from the spa that evening when a familiar number came on my cell phone. It was Lou Lamoriello, the general manager of Toronto at the time.

"Roman, what are you doing? Can you skate now?"
"Well, if you can call it skating..."
"Can you practice?"
"I don't know."
"Whatever. We bought you a ticket for tomorrow, go home now, pack your stuff and get here."

Two days later, I was knocking on his office door in Canada. I told him flat out that I was barely seventy percent done with training and refused to participate in model matches.

Roman Polák, ice hockey

He told me, just as honestly, that he had no promises, no contract for me, but he would pay for all the costs of my stay in Toronto. And that he and the coaches will do their best to get me back on track.

Coach Babcock then welcomed me back to the team in front of the entire locker room and said I'd be here until I got better. I really appreciate that.

After all, it only took two months before the coach and manager came to see me again.
"How are you?"
"Barely ninety percent."
"Good. We need you now. Here's your contract, so sign it and play tomorrow."

In special skates that fit my leg with screws, I played an NHL game again less than six months after the worst injury of my career.

This was the biggest win of my career.

It may sound stupid again, but in retrospect I don't think I care now that I didn't achieve any team success. I guess everything I've always done has been for a reason. I've played over seven hundred games in the NHL, I've been to the Olympics, the World Cup and the World Championships. I may not have won a fart there, but I have a check mark that I've been there. And I'm happy, because I carry good memories with me. And the Stanley Cup? San Jose and I were pretty close. But I gotta be fair and say, you couldn't beat Pittsburgh back then. They were in a completely different league. I still didn't quit in the NHL. Maybe things will work out in Dallas.

When I was young, I used to worry about what people thought of me, if I said something stupid in various interviews in the newspapers. Nowadays, I don't care about that stuff. I'm 33 years old and I don't plan to make myself out to be something I'm not.

Roman Polák, ice hockey

A lot of people are surprised that I let them take a picture of me with a hookah or a beer and ask me if managers and coaches mind. Why should they mind?

Last year we had a dinner at the club owner's with our sponsors. The whole team and all the coaches. He had a beautiful cigar warehouse, a humidor across the wall. The best Cuban brands. My eyes lit up.

"Roman, you smoke?"

The owner asked me point blank, and I replied just as honestly, "I'll have one now and then."

And suddenly we were sitting together in a chair, smoking a classic Cohiba. When my teammates saw it, they were shocked.

But what? We were free. And I'm not gonna lie to anybody that I don't smoke when I smoke a good cigar at home. Once it affects my performance, I'll cut back. But as long as I play my good hockey, which is why I'm still a valid player in the NHL, I'll do what I want. That's who I am and I'm not going to change for anybody.

After all, for a good four years now I've been coming home after the season thinking it's over. I'm actually looking forward to the moment when nobody remembers me in the NHL and nobody offers me a contract for next season on the first of July.

It's just that they still need me there.

They called me again.

And I'm gonna go all in again.
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Tomas
Posts: 3444
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews

Post by Tomas »

Celebrity news update: Plekanec + Lucie Safarova (retired tennis star: former No. 1 rank in doubles, 5-time Fed Cup winner...):



Tomas
Posts: 3444
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Translated (Czech) hockey interviews & news

Post by Tomas »

(from Czech "Without Cliches" website. Very long story. No link to PIttsburgh - just a really cool personal story.)

Jakub Kindl: "7th D-man"


Czech original with some cool pics:
https://www.bezfrazi.cz/pribehy/jakub-kindl/sedmej-bek




or very good deep-learning translation through DEEPL.COM of the full article:
The seventh running back
Jakub Kindl ice hockey


I know exactly what I was doing the day my mother died.

I was at practice.

I didn't miss a single one.

Hockey was an escape from the unpleasant reality for me, besides the passion in which I saw my future. Not just when I lost my mom. For a long time before that, when she was sick and the sight of her tormented me, I had only lived my dream of the NHL. I didn't want to see my mom disappear before my eyes, so when I was pulled from Šumperk to Pardubice in ninth grade, I looked for a way to stay there as much as possible and not go home.

I'm training. That was my real excuse.

Back then, at fourteen, I didn't have the balls to see a man who loved me as badly as he did. Mom fought the disease for a long time, but a year after I left, her condition got terribly worse. I came home a month later and I hardly recognized how different she was. She was already in the hospital and it didn't look good. I didn't understand what was going on, I didn't realize I was about to lose her forever.

Then one day we were skipping stairs as part of our summer training, and before we went to change on the ice, I stopped at the vending machine behind the curtain to buy Mila. I still remember it exactly. At that moment my father called me to tell me to go outside.

It was all clear to me as soon as I saw him, especially my brother, five years younger than me, crying and with his mouth agape. I was instantly ready, whereupon my father confirmed my fears by simply telling me what had happened. We sat down on a bollard in the parking lot behind the stadium and didn't really talk much. My dad just asked me if I was going back home with them.

I didn't. I'm not.

Why would I? I couldn't imagine looking at the apartment where I grew up with my mom and suddenly she wasn't there. I didn't want to.

I picked myself up and went back to the cabin with the boys. I didn't tell anyone what happened, I didn't let on. I was fifteen at the time and I was already training with the juniors, so I told myself that nobody could see my eyes through the grille on my helmet. Sprint, pass, shoot, turn with the puck... I did everything the same as everyone else.

I was just crying.

On the way to the hostel in Rybitvie, I confessed to my teammate Martin Wagner. He was a few years older, he knew more about the world. He understood why I didn't want to go home. To change my mind, he invited me to his place in Jaroměř, where he was from, for a weekend. I only came back to Sumperk for the funeral. The first funeral I had ever been to.

It was strange. Very strange.

I was sitting next to my father and I felt empty. Most of all when we stood up and a stream of people wished us condolences. Like a lot of my friends from elementary school. I wanted this procedure to end as quickly as possible. Let's get out of here and I can go back to Pardubice.

The very first practice on the day my mom died helped me. I was looking forward to every other one. Hockey was everything to me, it filled me up, I had fun, I was good at it. I heard around me that I could play in the NHL one day and my head was full of nothing but that. It wasn't disrespecting my mom. Her death took me, I just luckily as a kid I had something in my life that I could latch on to. If it was going to happen, if I was going to lose her, good thing I was so young. I didn't quite get the full context then, whereas if something like this were to happen now, I would feel it much more intensely. As I get older, I see myself becoming more and more sensitive. I realize now how much I miss my mother, which I couldn't imagine then.

Who knows what would have happened if I hadn't been so into hockey. What would I have done? I didn't have anything else, we had one card to play.

A lot of guys didn't take that risk, but I did. Luckily.

But I wasn't far from jeopardizing my career before it really got started. At 17, at a national team reunion, I suddenly started peeing blood. For no reason whatsoever. Even a week of rest didn't help, the trouble kept coming back and the tests kept coming back wrong. The situation got to the point where I had to have a biopsy, a procedure where they take a piece of your kidney with a needle so they can examine it. But there was a risk that they wouldn't hit the right spot, and then I wouldn't be able to play hockey. Still, we wanted to risk the procedure. There was no other way.

But within a few days, my body was back to normal. As it began, so it ended. Since then, I never once found blood in my urine, it never came back.

Good thing it did, because I didn't even do school. Even in primary school I belonged to the worse average, and I gradually dropped out of high school, because at the age of 16 I was already training with the Pardubice A team, which gave me a lot of work not only in terms of time. In those days, I slept in a hostel outside of training. Mr. Martinec and Mr. Šejba, who were in charge of us, always wondered why I was lying in bed and not at school. But I simply needed to rest. I heard over and over again how talented I was, who would think of school?

Gradually I stopped going.

I mean, first maths, which was quite a problem, especially in econ-specialized high school. I went to it exactly four times all year. I might have been in school, but when math started, I disappeared. I was scared, I couldn't do math, I went to the gym. Of course, I was going to fail because of that, and I was so crushed over the summer taking make-up exams. I felt like I was really studying, but I didn't pass the board.

Or well...

My father and my agent were with me, and I remember the principal saying to my father, "Mr. Kindl, we'll give it to him, but you have to promise us he'll never come back to this school."

So I went somewhere else. But I basically just enrolled there and never showed up. I put my education completely on hold. I was being raised by hockey, and besides, I was going to Canadian juniors the year after anyway.

That was a thing, too. I sat in the last row of the plane and bawled on the way. I was in tears when I said goodbye to my dad at the airport. After all, he was letting his first son out into the world, and I had never been this far away, or alone for so long. Of course, I didn't speak a word of English.

In the excitement of a new chapter that would introduce me to the NHL, I didn't even think to bring my mom's picture with me. But as I unpacked my suitcase upon arrival, there she was. In a frame. My father had added it. It's obvious to me, even though we never talked about it. We're both like that, we keep our emotions bottled up.

But thanks to him, I've had my mom on my nightstand ever since. I just look at her and even after all these years, it's like hearing, "You always have to deny women. Deny, deny..."

I don't know why, but that's the one piece of advice that sticks in my mind.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Sidney Crosby.

Jakub Kindl.

Does it seem to you that these two names are some distance apart in hockey reality? A year before the draft, that wasn't the case. I was right behind Crosby in the scouts' projections, and although my first season in Kitchener didn't go so well, my manager told me at the end of it that I was definitely going in the first round.

And sure enough, in my room at home in Sumperk, I found out on live TV that Detroit had taken me nineteenth overall.

The only team I didn't talk to during the physical. I later asked general manager Ken Holland about it, and he said they didn't have to find out anything from me, that they knew what kind of player I was.

Who wouldn't be confident after saying that...

The Red Wings were just coming off an era where they dominated the NHL. At my first training camp at 18, I caught up with Steve Yzerman before his last season, and other big guys who were really big. For example, when they split us into three teams, I ended up on that one with Brendan Shanahan and Mathieu Schneider. Shanahan went around and introduced himself, shook our hands. Everyone was ecstatic, only Robin Big Snake, the Indian, a huge brawler, says to him, "Dude, I know who you are, you don't have to introduce yourself to me..."

Shanahan took us youngsters to lunch that day, too. If I'm not mistaken, it was the first time I ever had a hamburger.

They let me play the only prep, but I didn't really want to. Full of excitement, I was looking forward to going back to Kitchener, where I was a slick guy. A year more experienced, drafted in the first round... I couldn't wait to be trusted with a leadership role and show on the ice that I was up to it. And I did. I did. I was scoring almost a point a game as a back, and at the end of the season I was drafted to the farm in Grand Rapids, and I arrived at the next Red Wings camp full of confidence. I managed two goals and an assist in four games there, and I figured I could suddenly make the first team at nineteen.

I ended up back in the minors.

Well, that's what Detroit prides itself on. Just don't rush anything. I left disappointed, but Kitchener was great again. Next time it'll work out, I told myself.

After one pre-season, I was sent to the farm.

I was confident that I would be the new Lidström, that I would gradually take over from him. So I thought about my importance to the Red Wings, but they hadn't given me a sniff yet at 20. They brought me back down to earth.

In Grand Rapids, I couldn't even get off the ground for a long time. I knew how hard it would be for me to make the jump to adult hockey. I couldn't make the transition. Not in that first season, where, given what I was used to from junior, I barely played and had the worst plus-minus in the league.

Minus thirty-four, you fool.

It was so bad that I considered going back to the Czech Republic. I, a kid drafted in the first round and still by Detroit, thought I'd jump right from junior to the NHL and be a star. Instead, I had trouble playing on the farm.

That's when Jirka Fischer, who was already working for the club, helped me. He told me to be patient, take advice and work on myself.

In hindsight I can see he was right, but tell that to the kid who was used to being two steps ahead of everyone else all his youth and suddenly for the first time recognizes the feeling that it can't be done. That he's not catching on. I'd only known the way up since I was 14, and now I was plummeting. There were games where I finished maybe minus four. When we were giving presents at Christmas, the old boys gave me a green coat.

The Green Jacket from the Golf Masters, given to the player with the most shots under par.

Hmm, thanks, guys.

I couldn't even take it, I didn't even think it was funny at the time.

I got better in my second season. To minus 14. I felt like they were making me a different hockey player. I was still doing whatever I wanted on the power play in juniors and just attacking, but Detroit was based on something else. They wanted to use my abilities, but first they needed me to be a player that would fit into their template defensively, team-wise.

I didn't understand it for a long time, and when the management came to see me, I played myself. I wanted to prove myself and thought the more I was on the puck, the more I skated back and forth, they would like me. But they were like, 'No. We know you can do that, and how you shoot and pass the puck. But we're interested in how you play without the puck, how you're positionally, how you defend, don't let players in the net and don't lose a fight in the corner."

I had a hard time getting it into my head that NHL hockey, especially for a goaltender, isn't about productivity, it's about the little things that if you don't have at a certain level, no one will keep you in the league for long. I may have played in the AHL All-Star game, but that didn't mean I was ready for the Red Wings.

It wasn't until my third year, almost twenty-three, that they let me take a peek in Detroit. For three games. I didn't play steadily until the next season.

There were more lessons. Day by day. First of all, unlike on the farm, where it's every man for himself, I had real pros around me, the best players and especially the best runners of their time. I was learning with every glance at them how they dealt with certain situations, how they reacted, when they weren't afraid to strike out and when they held back. I wrote down the automatisms in my head.

Second, we were coached by Mike Babcock.

Humanly, I can think what I want of him, but his emphasis on the little things that make players better is why this coach is so highly regarded. Win or lose, there was always a five-minute montage the next day of things we could improve on and continue to focus on. He had different preparation for each game, working out the details separately for each opponent.

He taught me how not to let the opponent in front of the net, how to stop him from going to the corner, how to move without the puck. I didn't know any of these things properly before and never needed them.

At an age when I thought I should have been among the NHL's elite long ago, I was slowly getting used to being at least an ordinary player.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I know what it takes to win a Stanley Cup.

But I didn't win it.

After my first year on the farm, in that crazy sweep, I was called up to the first team for the playoffs along with a couple of other guys. I hadn't played a single NHL game yet and I was already bagging with Datsyuk, Zetterberg and others when they needed to fill in for some rested guys. We flew in and out with the team, went to practice mostly after them and watched the games from the stands.

Jakub Kindl holding the Stanley CupI was nervous just from those practices and did everything the elders told me to do. Let them eat first or get on the bus. But it was so full when I arrived in Pittsburgh for the finals that when I was the last one to get on, there was nowhere to sit. I'm moving on. I'm moving on. It's packed... until Chris Chelios at the end, looking at Rambo.

I think he caught my shy look.

"Come sit down," he says to me before I can ask. So I ride next to Chelios at the Stanley Cup Finals.

A few weeks earlier, the playoffs had started with two losses to Nashville, and instead of Dominik Hasek, Chris Osgood went in goal. I sat with Dominik on the plane on the way to Colorado for the second round and listened to him say how convinced he was that he would start again. He wanted us to prepare him properly, so after the practice Andreas Lilja and I had a shot at him. He had us set up the pucks in the circles, he crawled all the way to the crease himself and told us to shoot at him with as much force as we could. For example, we ran across the field, fired golf shots at him and he caught everything. Unbelievable. He was incredibly tenacious.

"You're going at it again, right?" I asked him in the dugout.

"You bet."

But Osgood stayed in goal and the boys blew out Colorado 4-0. Hassan was never in the game again.

As the last final game in Pittsburgh came to a successful conclusion, we backups got into our gear, and for the first time I pulled my Red Wings jersey with my name on it over my head without having to play a single second in it. The final siren sounded, the guys jumped on each other, and then the dressing room door opened and we subs went out after them. I hugged all the legends, you can find me in the group photo, but the feeling I got from it all was... out of place.

Every member of the team got a chance to lift the Cup. Some guys who played at least one game in the season took advantage of it, I didn't. I was stupid to be out there with the Stanley Cup.

I still believe I did the right thing.

After the season, the club offered me that when the Cup flies to the Czech Republic to see Hasan and Jiri Hudler, I could take it for half a day for myself. Then I said to myself that when will there ever be another opportunity to show this trophy in Šumperk. I took advantage of what they offered me.

So I touched the Cup, which according to the legend I shouldn't do until I won it myself, but at least I didn't lift it above my head.

I believe I'll be able to enjoy this joy to the fullest later in my career.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

My best season didn't start in America. The NHL lockout allowed me to come back to Pardubice, and although we didn't do well there and it didn't help that David Krejci and Ales Hemsky played for us, I benefited from being on the ice in all situations. I played power plays, shorthanded, got into the national team and pumped up my confidence that I still had something in me.

Don't worry, I remember how unhappy the fans in Pardubice were. There was a lot of expectations on us, people probably imagined that NHL players would be the ones to decide the games, and they were especially pissed at me. I just made a bad pass and they were booing and whistling. I was annoyed, I've never experienced that in America, and we were crazy as a team and changed coaches twice, but once the NHL started in January, I came in as good as ever.

I still had no confidence in the camp, but even though two experienced players signed, Ian White and Carlo Colaiacovo, I was confident. Injuries came, a spot opened up for me and I took my chance. That run didn't end until the second overtime of Game 7 of the second round of the playoffs against Chicago. I played the whole time, I was good and I finally felt like a legitimate NHL hockey player.

But only for a little while.

Jakub Kindl with a teammate during the game

I'm still fighting for my spot to this day. The following summer I signed a big four-year contract, thinking I finally had something secure, and I was easily satisfied. No, I'm not crazy to think I didn't have to work on myself anymore. But I relented in my head. The drunkenness of the last few years, where I constantly had to prove on occasions that I could be the player the Red Wings once saw in me, had worn me down. I no longer wanted or needed to struggle in the uncertainty, I knew I would have a job for years to come, and with it, good money. Suddenly, I wasn't on guard. It felt like it was finally here, it was going to work and I wasn't going to get shot down anymore.

It wasn't like that.

Even when I was drafted, Coach Babcock was asking scouts what kind of player I was.

"Something like Skoula from Colorado," they said.

"Geez, not that," should have been his response.

I wasn't his horse from the start, and while the manager liked me, Babcock seemed to be constantly testing my endurance and letting me know he didn't like me as a player.

He, in turn, didn't fit me humanly.

I could see him joking with the others while he barely exchanged a few words with me. And when he did, it was more to throw me off. One time he put me on the right side of the defense and I was surprised at the scoreboard. He was just walking by and he heard me, so he looked at the lineup and he goes, "Oh yeah, you're on the right... You're having trouble working on the left side and I'm making it harder for you, huh?"

He deleted it and put me back on the left.

He rarely gave me a lot of credit on the ice. Even my teammates would comment on it, because I often didn't play for a long time, then I'd come in and I'd be one of the best. Then he sat me down again. It happened that I didn't play a game for two months, then I jumped in, played well, picked up a goal and an assist, and went to the stands again.

It's not fun not to play for so long, then you do, and as soon as you get up to speed, you're out of the lineup again. And it still happened that I didn't even know I was going to play that night. I stayed in the locker room after the morning practice and was suddenly told to get ready for the game. I already had extra skating and weight training in my legs.

Despite everything, I did well that day.

And then I ended up among the substitutes again.

Jakub Kindl sitting on the stairs

But I wasn't going to let myself be broken. In spite of what was happening, I still went to the locker room so that nothing could be seen on me. I kept it to myself, how much it pissed me off that I wasn't playing, and tried to be a good teammate. I learned to stay level all the time, never too down, never too up. I tried to keep a good attitude and help the other guys as much as I could. That's why nobody ever had a problem with me.

But maybe at the same time, that trait turned against me. Babcock saw that he could do whatever he wanted with me and I'd be cool. And that if he gave me a sniff, I wouldn't fail.

The first year he was out of Detroit, we played in Toronto, where he went.

In overtime, I took the puck in our zone, drove through the crease and scored the winning goal.

I was happy as hell, I can't deny it, but I was even happier to see how happy my teammates were for me. They knew how tough I had it for Babcock. That night, I went through a lot of messages on my phone, and I got texts from everyone at the club, from the cooks to the guys who parked our cars to the rollers to the office people.

We were like a big family in Detroit. That's why I didn't want to leave.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I should have left sooner, I know that now.

Before I got labeled as the guy who's always plugging holes in the lineup.

I let things go too far, but I still believed I was the new Lidstrom. That I'd stay in one organization since I was 18, and gradually they'd build a defense on me.

Instead, I was more and more solidifying my status as a seventh linebacker. A player who jumps in now and then, plays his game, but is never the first choice when the going gets tough. The longer you're in that role, the more your team perceives you that way.

That's how the whole NHL sees you.

It doesn't matter what you can do, what your strengths are. You're just a seventh line back to everybody.

Not leaving sooner put a damper on my career. If I'd made a decision, maybe I wouldn't be in the situation I'm in now. They told me that a long time ago, and I didn't realize it until I was a kid myself. Before that, I didn't want to leave the club that I had grown so close to, plus I was getting paid good money, comfort and the desire not to run away from the fight in me took over.

It prevailed until the opportunity came up to move to Florida, which made sense to me at the time.

Jakub Kindl at the game

But for the first few months, more than the feeling of being a member of the Panthers, I carried the impression that I was no longer with the Red Wings. I couldn't come to terms with the new reality. Twelve years in an organization that is still the cream of the NHL for me was something I just couldn't get out of my head. Playing in Florida was great, though. I felt valid, I was on the ice in all situations.

Then the playoffs came, we lost the first game to the Islanders 4:5, I was there for two goals, including the winning one, and the coach decided to make a change for the next time. He took me out and put a young guy in.

I didn't blame the others for getting a chance at my expense. When I watched the next game, even though we lost in the end, the boys played well. Coach had no reason to touch the lineup anymore. I respected his decision.

But by fall camp, everything was already wrong. The club had a shake-up and a change of personnel, including the coach and the general manager, and I was outright dumped. I still had a year left on my three million dollar contract, and yet after a week they sent me to the farm.

They blamed it on the fat.

Yes, fat. Body fat, as they call it in America.

I've never been below ten percent, I've kept it at twelve my whole career. In Detroit, nobody minded because they saw me training and working out, but the new management in Florida suddenly got mad that I didn't do the tests they wanted me to do at age 30 and I'm twelve percent body fat. I was still training the same way I had for years before.

After the pre-game, I was told there was a lack of commitment on my part, and when we talked to the manager afterwards, the coach said, "Yeah, and you put a bad pass underneath..."

It was clear that everything about me annoyed them, that they didn't care about me.

But what the hell, I laid my ears down and went to the farm. I could have been offended, or I could have enjoyed the new assignment. I chose the latter.

It's just the town...

Springfield, Massachusetts. Oh, man! From Florida, where I had already set up a beautiful apartment with a huge balcony and a view of the ocean and boats, I was suddenly sitting in a hotel in Springfield, Massachusetts. Downtown was a crazy, legitimately dangerous place. Gangs, robberies, drugs. The club told us new people not to go there.

Jakub Kindl under the evening sky

I found out there was some truth to the rumors on Halloween. I was awakened from my sleep by huge bangs, but I had a view of the river, I couldn't see the main street from my room, so I thought it was fireworks and wanted to crank it up again.

But it sounded a bit different.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Five shots, all hit like a pig. Coming up on the horn. That's when it dawned on me that it probably wasn't fireworks. On the street in front of the hotel, the same street I'd walked to practice on this morning, guys were shooting at each other with cops.

Welcome to Massachusetts.

Winter Park was a three-minute walk away, so I didn't see anything else during the month I lived there. I was always one of the first ones in the booth and left with the custodians because there was nothing else to do. Again, as in my youth, hockey was the only thing that filled my day. I liked the role of an older player helping the young ones. I tried to improve them and myself and be ready if I was traded somewhere. Because I was resigned to not going back to the Panthers.

So what, I'm playing, I'm somewhere where I'm respected, I'm one of the oldest, the guys are taking me, I get along with the coaches, it's fun... With that mindset, I was heading into the locker room every day and realized I was actually enjoying it.

Then they called me up. I flew in the day of the game and without a word, they sent me back the next morning. When I searched for the reason, they told me they were trying to replace a player, which didn't work.

Why do they feel the need to do this to a 30-year-old kid...

After another fortnight I joined the Panthers for the second time and permanently, I lasted until the end of the season, but they didn't let me catch my rhythm either. I didn't play for, like, thirteen games in a row. I found myself back in the same position I was in before in Detroit.

Because of my attitude and the fact that I was getting fitter, I at least earned the respect of one guy.

Jaromir Jagr is his name.

When I came to Florida, we didn't talk much with Jarda. I felt like we didn't have much to say to each other, and honestly, I didn't even know how to talk to such a legend. You just look at him differently, even though he's obviously a teammate like everyone else in some ways.

But then the next year, when Jarda saw how I was working on myself, he came to me himself and started showing me various special exercises. I felt like I had risen in his eyes.

Jakub Kindl during a game with Jaromir Jagr

What's true, my shooting improved in a moment thanks to his advice. Suddenly I felt more power on my stick, I started to enjoy training. I appreciated that a guy like that cared about me getting better, we had a lot of fun and I suddenly didn't care if I was sent to the game or not. Because I knew I was doing my best for it.

And that the second most productive player in NHL history appreciated it.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Brake, snow flies off the blade of the skate. The muscles in my legs pump and stomp back. And again. And again. Over and over again.

I wanted to scream, "**** this ****.

But I never did. Not even when the other guys had the day off and I was alone on the ice with an assistant coach pacing back and forth just because I wasn't in the lineup. I never let it show how much I wanted to show what I could do.

Jakub Kindl in a Hockey jersey was - and is - everything to me anyway.

It was my deliverance when my mother died, my goal when I wanted to be a star in Detroit, and my luxurious livelihood even when things weren't going my way.

I should have been somewhere else by now. I'm 30 years old and I'm still the same guy fighting for my place in the hockey world. I've never stopped since I was 14 when I took off, and I still haven't achieved what I wanted. So far.

So far, I've only ever scratched the surface of what I'm looking for in my hockey life.

I've made the mistakes I've told you about here. But when I look back, I know I have nothing to be ashamed of. Not everybody could have done those earlier years like I did. I never once showed my anger. I never let it get to me, even though it's mentally challenging to come into the locker room with a coach who obviously doesn't like you, with guys who are playing and are all fun... I never got down about it, I never let others know if I was enjoying hockey or not, I never threw my stick around in anger. I was always ready for my opportunity and I know I did my best every time. I love hockey and I still believe in what I can do.

My livelihood is playing the game. I live in luxury. I should be happy, but I'm not. It's still eating me up that I'm not showing what I've got. That they won't let me show it. They didn't let me play.

At the same time, I realize how lucky I was anyway. Who can be a part of the Detroit Red Wings for that long? I was lacing up my skates, and Lidstrom, Chelios, Hasek, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Rafalski were sitting around me... I thought I was part of a unit made up of those names, I was just annoyed that hockey-wise I wasn't as important as they were.

But who was I supposed to push through? Was I supposed to take the spot from Kronwall in his prime and with the power he used to crush anyone who got in his way? Lidstrom, the best back of our time? Rafalski, who won Stanley Cups wherever he went? Chelios, the legend of legends? I'm sure, but this was unrealistic.

Every time one of those guys quit, they brought in another experienced backstop, and I was the seventh guy.

Still, I didn't give up, and I'm not giving up now. I know that if I was at another club, I would have played steadily in the NHL a long time ago and had a career like a thunderbolt by now.

But those are just ifs.

I could have thought about them at home and been pissed off, but the guys didn't look at me afterwards at practice.

Like the time my tears flowed the day my mom died.
Tomas
Posts: 3444
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews & news

Post by Tomas »

(from Czech "Without Cliches" website. Very long story. No link to PIttsburgh - just a really cool personal story.)

Pavel Brendl: "That look I got..."




Czech original with some cool pics:
https://www.bezfrazi.cz/pribehy/pavel-b ... muj-pohled




or very good deep-learning translation through DEEPL.COM of the full article:
That look I got...
Pavel Brendl ice hockey



The puck flew out of the crease in front of the Swiss goalie and bounced right to me, I got a shot on the high circle. I guessed rather than saw that the only place was next to the stick on the ice. A tiny spot. There was nowhere else to shoot.

I hit it there. I wasn't aiming, I was just coming to hit it.

At that moment, I had our bench behind me, with the head coach Zbyněk Kusý standing on the edge of it. After the game he told me that he had never seen anything like that in his life. "I clearly saw the spot, it was just right for the puck. You hit it exactly, there was nowhere else to put it," he marveled.

That goal gave us the lead in the quarterfinals of the 2001 World Junior Championship, but the Swiss made us very angry. They turned it around and we only tied it up at the beginning of the third period at 3:3.

And then I made the difference.

Venca Nedorost found me in front of the net, and even though I had the other team on my back, I sent it in. I never minded being chased down and chopped down. I scored the goal because I did what my instincts told me to do. What I had in me. Worse was when I had too much time to think, I reconsidered how I was going to finish three times, and then I hit it into the goalie pad.

Or when I was cold and not into the game. Even my trained instincts weren't working as they should.

I really enjoyed this game against the Swiss. Because we needed to reverse the result and win at any cost, I was on the ice all the time. I felt like I was in the game a lot and that I helped the team with my own stuff.

The semifinals and finals were a different story.

Even though we made it all the way to gold, I was left with conflicting feelings in the end. Of course, I was happy that we were champions, but on a personal level, I was not thrilled with the tournament's climax. I hardly played in the medal matches. The coaches played me like every time I was on the ice I was more of a threat to our goal than to the opponent's.

And when there was a defensive zone foul, for example, and my line went to it, I stayed on the bench and they sent someone else on the ice instead of me, most often Martin Erat. A guy who later had a fantastic career, one of the best ever for a Czech hockey player in the NHL. I rooted for him and wished him well. It was only at that moment in the 20s that I couldn't understand why the coaches were taking me out at the expense of someone else. It wasn't until we got on offense that Martin subbed in and I jumped in. Twenty seconds and a nice sit down again. I didn't play the end of the game at all. Me, the most productive player of the championship, who was definitely not a minus player. I always scored so many goals and had such good teammates on the line that there was no reason to be afraid to put me on the ice.

In both of the aforementioned games, we took an early lead and eventually pulled it out to close wins and gold. Cool. But I wanted to play and I wanted to decide early, not rely on someone not to blow it with ten seconds left on a power play and go to overtime. I didn't want to settle for 1-0 and defend it, I wanted to win 4-0. Plus, those were the moments when I was at my best. The opponent was pushing, the puck got knocked away from us, I got away and sent it in. I loved those situations.

Back then, at the famous Golden 20s in Moscow, the coaches started bothering me with this kind of hockey. They made me sick of it. They started to make me a power-play offensive specialist, which is not worth putting in all situations.

Power play? We're losing? All right, Brendl, go and score. We're up? No, wait, you're not going in now.

Everybody was cheering about how spectacularly we kicked it, and I was just getting tired of hockey right there. Not the game itself, which I've always loved and still love. I was tired of the way the coaches treated me, who I was in their eyes.

A one-sided player.

As I transitioned into adulthood, it got more and more intense and I can only really remember short stretches when I felt I could play the way I was meant to play. There were no such moments in the NHL, with minor exceptions, and judging by the number of games I played, I didn't end up playing a full season there. After the results I had in junior, the fourth pick in the draft and my performances in the youth national teams, much more was expected of me, and of course I was confident of leaving a much bigger mark in the league.

It didn't happen.

It was due to circumstances beyond my control and mistakes I made.

Bad coaches and my bad decisions.

And my perspective. The look on my face that I can't hide behind, which, along with my conviction that I didn't want to be seen in the papers, gradually earned me a reputation as a freak.

But I don't think what they say about me in that regard is true.

I don't think being closed-minded is necessarily a reason for condemnation.

Nor do I think I've had a lousy career because I didn't make it to the NHL, as others often perceive.

And this is how I saw it all...

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I wasn't the type to celebrate my goals.

Still, I remember two when I went crazy with euphoria. One in Sweden in a Brynäs jersey, when I had a couple of games in a row where I couldn't score from nothing. Then the day before one game I told my teammates that I was just going to push something there.

That's exactly what happened. I took it by force and it was an important, breakthrough goal.

Just like in February 2004 for Carolina at home against Washington. I tied it at 3-3 in the 50th minute. Shift after shift we were pushing, pounding, and I just blasted it in from the crease over a cluster of sticks in that situation, chipped from all sides.

In both cases they were worked, ugly goals. The kind I had to earn, in a way, on the ice. They managed to bring out the emotions in me, too. I've always been used to scoring a lot of goals, so they were nothing special for me. That was my contribution to the team. I was shooting from the volley, hitting the crossbar, converting breakaways down the wing. That's what I was good at, that's what was expected of me and that's what I expected of myself. Every time I was happy internally and first and foremost I felt relieved that I proved what I could do and the whole team would play a little better again.

Pavel Brendl, ice hockeyMost of my goals came from the fact that I was simply skilled, I knew it and I got the pass I needed. I knew that if I got the puck right, I would score. That if I go ten times two-on-one and the other guy throws it to me, seven times it could be a goal. There are guys who get nervous in those situations, whereas I just knew where to hit it. Either from the one or do that pass back and send it into the wicket without looking.

I didn't need to aim. I was aware of where I was on the ice and how the goalie was standing. I never tried to outrun one, to look at one. For me, it was just a matter of hitting the right spot in the net. I picked an area, one of my favourites, and if I didn't miss it, I had such a shot that I just put it in. If the goalie's stick didn't get stuck in there, or he didn't pull some nonsensical save once in a while, it was a goal.

My shot came from practice, nothing else. You can listen to all the talk about what's innate and what's natural talent, but I know it was only because of my dad that I had such a precise shot in my hands. If I hadn't practiced in front of the house every day when I was a kid and shot 200 pucks like he told me to, he would have given me an earful.

I didn't always feel like it, I didn't always really go when maybe it was ugly, but the reality is that as a kid, on the vast majority of days after school, I actually picked up a hockey stick and shot. Back home in Nové Město nad Metuji we lived in a terraced house, so I didn't even have the comfort of my own garden. My dad set up the goal on a strip of grass between the sidewalk and the field and put a metal square a few yards in front of it. Not too big, so I wouldn't learn to pull the puck who knows how far, more to get my wrists into a quick swing in a small space.

That gave me the most of everything.

Because there was no net or crease behind the net. Whenever I missed it by a hundred and eighty by a hundred and twenty inches, the puck would fly sixty yards across the field and I had to pedal for it. And if it caught a stupid bounce off the curb, it might as well have ended up in a nearby intersection and I was chasing it under parked cars.

I had no choice but to hit it precisely. I just learned to do it and it was automatic. Puck on the stick, goal, curve, swing, goal. Routine for me.

But when I got the puck over the goal line, it was a big deal.

That time in Washington, I was also showing my emotions because it was the only time I felt I was finally getting a foothold in the NHL. That I had it. We were playing on a line with some young guys, Erik Staal and Justin Williams, and it was obvious that we were clicking. The team was into me, I was playing a lot, I was playing well and scoring goals. Just like I was expected to do. Everything was starting to fall into place. My coach told me that if I kept going like this, he could see me scoring thirty-five goals every season. I was on the right track. Finally, after all these years.

And then came the Toronto game.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

"Any of the players here interest you?"

I was asked in the stands during one of my first junior practices in Calgary by a guy who had looked after me in the beginning. We were practicing in two groups, and the skeleton of the team from previous seasons was on the ice.

"I don't see anyone who stands out at first glance," I replied truthfully.

"What about that one over there, the 20?"

He's small, skates weird, and from what I've noticed, he can't even shoot properly... Kind of a dime-a-dozen.

It was Brad Moran.

Best teammate I ever had.

Incredibly smart hockey player. He never made it in the NHL, only played eight games, but at least he had a nice career in Europe and put up a lot of points in the AHL. And for me, he'll always be a player that I instantly clicked with, we were hockey connected. I scored 93 goals in 88 games in my first season in Canada as a 17-year-old with that guy at center.

Pavel Brendl, ice hockeyBrad understood what a lot of guys later in my career couldn't: That if he would pass to me, I would score goals, he would get assists and the whole team would benefit. And he scored seventy-seven goals that season, because it certainly wasn't that I had to play all on myself, as was later attributed to me. When I stood up somewhere, Brad knew about me and passed me as I needed. And when I sent the puck to him, it was right where I wanted it. That's what it was all about. I don't think I was a soloist, I just never felt the need to throw a frog to someone when I knew they didn't have the shot I had. Yes, I was selfish. But only in the sense that I put it on goal myself because I believed it gave us a better chance to score. But I always passed it if it made sense.

The interplay with Brad confirmed that. The coaches were just initially looking for someone to play on the other wing. Not many people could play with us until they tried an Indian. Brent Dodginghorse was his name. A skinny kid, but a real warrior. He knew no pain. The more we shined, the more our opponents put the bullies on us, and especially me, as a European, they wanted to intimidate. I wasn't afraid, I just wasn't on the ice to fight. And I didn't have to, because the Indian always solved all conflicts. He'd come in between us and beat everybody up. He had it in him. He also did a bit of defending for us and battling for pucks. He was able to figure out in his head what his role was and that if he did it, everybody would benefit.

That's how I enjoyed hockey. Everybody in the lineup had a role and was aligned with it.

Even back then, my coach didn't put me on shorthanded at first. I scored twelve goals in the first six games of the season, nobody could stop me, but still - we barely fouled, he was already taking me out of the game. Gradually I got more and more sour about it, and once he even slammed the door on his way off the ice.

"What's the problem?" Coach ran right after me.

I explained that I wanted to play shorthanded. I'm not just tired of sitting on the bench, plus I used to play them at home in the youth and I scored goals in them too.

So he obliged me. Brad and I started to go into the four together and I ended up scoring ten goals that season. There were also situations when we were losing, and the coach would send two of us on the ice against the opponent's power play and tell us to go out and score.

It worked. I had a similar situation later in Sweden, where they also let me play shorthanded.

I went to Canada when I was already playing my second year in the juniors in Olomouc and was the best there, so at the end of the season I was moved to the first league team and I was seen there as well. So I saw overseas as a return from boys' hockey to the youth, where I just had to be the most prominent. And that I was doing it just to be more visible to the NHL.

After a season where I broke every possible WHL junior rookie record and we still won the league, I was drafted by the New York Rangers as the No. 4 overall pick.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I've been in more situations like this and they just reinforced what I don't want.

I became friends with Petr Nedved in America and we had a beer in Prague in the summer. We barely had time to say anything to each other before the dudes came running up to us and let out a familiar, "Ciao, Bear!" And then they slapped us and wanted to talk. Instead of chatting quietly, they swayed to our table and the fun was over.

And then Peter told me he didn't know them at all. They were the only ones who had that feeling.

I was in my early twenties and I knew I didn't want to end up like that. Partly because I had already had a pretty intense experience in Calgary in juniors, which is what most people want.

I was famous.

But I soon found out that it didn't suit me well enough. I gave out so many autographs and group photos that the requests gradually became annoying. Most of all when people flocked to me, for example, at dinner just as I was getting food on the table. I thought that was downright rude. The worst was when one person came and ten others came.

I couldn't play it cool. It bothered me. So just wait ten minutes while I milk, and then come over to my place...

Pavel Brendl, ice hockey

As a kid, I was no different than my peers. I didn't sit in a corner somewhere, doing stupid **** with a bunch of us, and I liked being the centre of attention. But the first two years in Calgary, plus what happened around the draft, showed me that I didn't want to be popular. I had my moment of fame and it was enough.

That's why I gradually stopped talking to reporters and didn't want any photo shoots. I didn't want to be a famous media face. So I couldn't go out for a beer with my friends like Peter? Thanks, I don't want to.

I didn't have a good experience with newspapers anyway.

They were publishing rubbish about me. Someone in America said something and the Czech Republic picked it up without asking anyone how it really was. Some wrote things about me that I couldn't even talk to them. They may have never even seen me in person, but they portrayed me in their articles as if I was some kind of nutcase.

The thing that finally blew me away was during the lockout. When I left Trinec and then Olomouc after a few games, a magazine jokingly said that I had finally found my team and that I had been traded to Dynamo Ulan Bator for a herd of yaks. Something like that.

Sorry, that was too much. Whoever put that together didn't know **** about me, or the situation, or why things didn't work out for which team. No one could be surprised that I didn't want to talk to the press anymore. There are the types of people who would rise above that, but it just reinforced my belief that I'd be better off living my life on my own terms away from media attention. And that I don't even need to be flattered and praised. I would have liked to have been written about, if only I had scored three goals in a game, and that would have been the end of it. I didn't need to bust my chops anywhere.

But that still doesn't mean I'm as weird as people say I am.

It's not even true that I'm lazy and only ate hot dogs, which of course was also written somewhere once and has been taken as truth ever since. How I feel about exercise and eating is probably quite eloquent today, when I haven't played at the highest level for a long time, and yet I haven't gotten any fatter. I mean, if I don't do anything for three days, I've got nerves. I have to keep exercising, playing tennis or at least golf. I can't imagine life without some physical activity.

I've always enjoyed summer training. Sprints, the gym, jumping hurdles... I just hated long runs, but I'm not the first or last ice hockey player. And on the ice, I just didn't enjoy the exercises that I thought were unnecessary for my style of hockey. But I always did them anyway, without grumbling. I never said a word, never failed to do what was asked of me.

But what my former agent Henyš told about me was more in line with the image of me - he said I should have told Mr. Holík at the 20s that I wouldn't go to the morning practice.

You beauty... I would never dare to say I wouldn't go to a training session. Never in my life! If only because I could imagine my dad coming over and giving me a hard time.

The whole situation was that Mr. Holík came to tell us that we had a practice scheduled for 8:00 a.m. and what do we say? And I said, "You're crazy, aren't you?" Yeah, it was jovial. But there was such an atmosphere in the team and Mr. Holík was a people person. You could talk to him in that tone if the team was going. And we really did.

But to say I wouldn't go to practice? If somebody told me we'd have it at 6 a.m., I'd be at the rink at 5:30, putting on my skates.

Nine out of ten guys on the team were really stressed that we had to go on the ice that morning, but they kept their mouths shut and kept up. Only I - when Mr. Holík asked - answered truthfully that it sucked and that we'd better get some sleep. But since the training was at that hour, I just figured it out.

I was just making the face I was making. I'm just not one to wake up in the morning with a beaming smile.

And that's my other problem. My face.

I never talked back, and I never really had to. I mean, everything about me shows right away. I can't look happy when I don't feel happy.

You can tell if I'm sour or not just by looking at me.

I know I am. Everybody tells me so, including those closest to me. I've tried to work on it, but I just can't do it any other way. It's just the way I look, I naturally look annoyed. What am I supposed to do about it? I'm turning 40 and I'm not gonna change my face.

I heard it bothered people back then with the Rangers. Nobody came to me, not my teammate, not my coach, not the management, and took me aside, saying this is not good. Never. I should have figured it out on my own, which I couldn't, and I became this comfortable European guy who looked weird and didn't want to get laid.

I never slacked off. Yeah, I suppose I could have done a little extra and smiled, but that's not my thing. I didn't sell how hard I work, because it suits my mood better to show what I can do, without unnecessary pomp and bullshit. I did my preparation, but more on the side. I didn't want to be seen with her. And even that was a mistake, because if they'd ever seen me stepping it up by myself in the gym, they'd have looked at me differently too. America is set up that way. You're supposed to tell everyone how happy you are and how badly you rub. Whoever shows it more is better off in the end.

And that's not my style.

I've been asked a lot in Philadelphia why I'm always so angry and why I don't smile at least a little bit.

I wonder why...

It was all about me believing I was finally gonna get a real shot in the NHL, and instead I was left on the farm. And when they did pull me up, it was only to spend four or five minutes a game on the ice with the brawlers.

I just wasn't happy and I couldn't even pretend to be.


&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

At the beginning of the first camp in Rangers I felt miserable. I arrived with the pomp and circumstance of a draft pick as a player on whom the club should build its future, but also with a fever.

Of course, I didn't tell anyone how I was feeling, because you just go to your first NHL camp to play, even if you just got your leg blown off. That's how I was raised. Don't complain and work until I'm dying.

It was just really obvious that I wasn't okay. I was like in slow motion in the opening model game. I skated awkwardly and played downright bad, which got me suspended for not practicing all summer. So I conceded the color, took two days off, and then started the next game we played against each other as a team.

Three goals, two assists.

Pavel Brendl, ice hockeyAnd they sent one to test me to see if I was scared. He started at me, saying he was going to slap me, and I didn't give in and I crossed him back, I didn't let anything get to me. Good thing I didn't care that much about hockey and didn't know it was Todd Harvey, who's been playing NHL for a few years now and cuts it pretty good. If I'd known that, I probably wouldn't have fought him.

The awkward beginning was already dragging with me anyway though.

They put me in the pre-season, I scored a goal, an assist, good, but nothing to dazzle and earn a spot on a team with greats like Messier, Fleury, Graves, Leetch or Nedved.

So... I'm naming them now. Back then, I didn't even know anyone but the biggest names, I didn't look around and speculate who I had a chance to break through. I believed I was so good that I deserved a place. But no, they sent me back to the minors.

That year, Theo Fleury, a huge signing, scored one power-play goal for the Rangers.

One.

Journalists told him that with a salary of eight and a half million a year, it was a bit low, that the club should have kept young Brendel, that he would have scored more power-play goals.

But so what. The club was in a severe slump at the time, even with the other star reinforcements, and after the season Neil Smith, the longtime general manager who picked me, quit. Glen Sather came in.

He didn't like the Czechs at all, and he certainly didn't like me. And certainly not after the misunderstanding we had.

I still don't think I opened my mouth to him like he's serving. I really didn't. I just laughed at something he and his colleagues told me in his office after our first camp together. They were telling me completely obvious nonsense. They were trying to explain why they were sending me back to junior again. That they need to keep so and so player and so and so has to play at least on the farm so they don't lose him...

It wasn't even about the first team, it was about the farm!

So tell me, "Good, we don't think you're ready for that yet, we think another year in the minors will do you good." I'd shut my ears and say: "OK". But making up stuff like that?

I thought Sather was almost making fun of me, plus everyone in America was always telling me to be positive, so I just started laughing, which they took as a disrespect. That I was laughing at my superiors. But I didn't mean any harm, I didn't mean to be rude. It just made me laugh how they were trying to tell me something so they wouldn't have to tell me straight out that they didn't think I was playing well enough yet.

Thus began my inevitable demise with the Rangers before I ever really started with them. On top of that, I instantly gained a reputation as a flop. A strange Czech who mocks the great Sather himself. That's what people in the league say to each other.

Last season in the minors was a complete waste of time for me. I did what I wanted on the ice and still got almost a goal a game. I got tired of it. And even before that, Kusák from Pardubice called me and told me to give it up and join him for a year. I considered this option a lot, I wanted to play men's hockey, but on the advice of my agent I stayed in Canada.

But my development basically stopped there for a year, and I was traded to Philadelphia.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I had all the firsts with the Flyers - first game, first goal, first feeling that they'd let me play my best - but everything went wrong right from the start.

I had a great camp, they put me on the power play with Jeremy Roenick and John LeClair, but I turned my ankle in the opening game of the season. I came back after a couple of weeks, but I couldn't skate properly. Any change of direction was terribly painful and I couldn't practically walk. What kind of hockey could I play then, when I was only going straight back and forth... I suffered until January, but by then I was already on the farm.

And if the Flyers were playing boom boom hockey at the time, it was magnified there.

And they had seven Czechs and Slovaks in the organization, which didn't bother me. Totally crazy situation. We were fighting amongst ourselves for one spot, and even if one of us got pulled, the top two elite lines were already set.

Every once in a while, if someone got hurt or dropped out, they let me go on the power play.

"Pav, go out there and figure something out."

But when I was playing in the NHL, most of the time I was just passing the puck next to a black brawler named Donald Brasher. I respect guys who play hockey based on skating and emphasis, and I know they're needed for the team, but I just didn't enjoy playing with them. I needed something else.

Even though this situation lasted into my second season, I still didn't feel like I was missing the train. I was twenty-one years old and I still believed that I could make it. That I would eventually get a chance to show what I could do, and it would just take time. I can even understand that I didn't play enough in the NHL when the team was so loaded.

I just didn't play enough on the farm. Even there, I was treated like a one-use player.

I was sick of it, but I wasn't going to run away from the fight. It would have seemed like cowardice. I didn't even feel like I was losing my edge. In training I kept flying where I was supposed to, I scored some goals even in such a crappy space, so I trusted myself. I had it in my head that I just needed to wait for the right moment.

But it's true that I probably didn't send positive signals to my surroundings. In short, after I had done my chores, I packed up and left. Knowing that if no one could see what I could do, there was nothing I could do about it.

I remember situations when I wanted to at least stack pucks on the rings after practice and shoot, whereupon ten dudes crowded around the net and started throwing pucks into the corners and banging them one-on-one. So I couldn't lean into it without hitting one of them in the head. I had to wait half an hour on the bench for them to finish fighting, only to be chased off the ice by the ice man anyway. In the meantime, I was getting cold anyway.

Thanks a lot.

Of course, I should have stuck it out, and I should have shown how much I wanted it at least a couple of times. Definitely. But then again, I know that today. Nobody could get me to do it then. My teammates were playing for their jobs and my superiors didn't talk to me about it.

Most of all, I had the feeling that I could do more than everyone else, so why the hell didn't anyone give me the opportunity to show it. Why don't they at least work with me on the farm to make me better and automatically make me a player they can only put on the power play. Why do I sometimes get not ten, but twenty minutes a game where I'm on pace and feel like I'm important to the team?

"You deserve to play more," the coaches would tell me.

Unfortunately, it didn't work that way for me. The more you let me play, the better I'd get. But if you don't let me play enough and tell me how to earn it, I'm just not gonna be good. That's how I had it. I understand that a lot of hockey players have had to go through this as much as I have - and they've dealt with it. I didn't. I couldn't deal with it, and I take it as another one of the mistakes that fundamentally affected my career. It's just that when I went on the ice four times in a period, I wasn't involved in the game, and at the same time, I was aware that every puck contact mattered because I didn't want to screw it up in the first place, so no one could blame me. And as cold as I was, I wanted too much and I was thinking too much, but I just messed up. For example, a pass that I normally gave a hundred times exactly, I measured so carefully that I hit the first guy in the skates.

It's in situations like that that someone manages to show what they've got. I couldn't do it. I needed space and then I would give it back, I'm convinced of that. Because I scored goals - which I was good at - and my team was able to win because of them.

Instead, most of the time I was off the pace, stuck on the bench and not enjoying the hockey.

To this day, I still don't understand that even on that stupid farm I was treated like a power play specialist... Why didn't they at least play me more there, so I felt like I was part of an organization that cared about me improving in every aspect?

Yes, I can relate to the fact that every team has players assigned to specific roles. Yeah, right. I understand the need to have a checking line, somebody specifically on the defensive line and so on. But what I can't understand is why my coach didn't put me on the ice so I wouldn't fall off the pace. Why, when I have more potential to decide games than other teammates, he doesn't treat me in a way that keeps me in the game.

The reality seemed to be that we had a team full of butchers and every once in a while we would get eliminated. And since Brendel's skate can't touch the ice when we're defending or going shorthanded, sometimes I'd sit on my ass for maybe half a period before it was finally my line's turn again after all the shorthanded shots.

I never needed to be on the ice for a minute at a time. But why not send me in for at least twenty seconds even when shorthanded, so I'm not just stuck on the bench until we take it away - and someone else will foul me anyway, so I'll just sit there without being affected by the game. It happened to me later in Russia, where I didn't even get on the ice in overtime. I think the coach was thinking that we might lose instead of putting a player in there who is capable of scoring the win.

I was just sour a lot of times for that reason. In junior college, I built a reputation at every level as someone who can be a difference maker in any game. Of course, even with my offensive talent, when I'm cold and undefeated, I don't convert the first chance I get.

I score when I'm on pace and in the game.

It remains an incomprehensible thing to me years later. It's not that I have to do everything and play alone all the time. It's that my coach lets me cool down and then asks me to do miracles. If he's good, I think he has to see that and he can't poison my hockey like that. If I was sitting on the bench for ten minutes, I simply didn't feel like an important part of the team, like a player who is supposed to make decisions. It didn't make sense to me that I was watching guys who objectively couldn't do as much as I could, but they were playing.

It was pure frustration.

"Why didn't you go to the coach and tell him that?" people ask me when I tell them this.

"Because I didn't feel it was appropriate," I reply.

Because I was raised differently from home. In the Czech Republic, when I was young, I had to come into the booth, shut up and listen. And suddenly, at 21, I'm supposed to go to coaches in America and tell them how to treat me? That wasn't my thing. And more importantly, if even the coach on the farm can't see what I can bring to the team, what am I going to tell him? I could go to him if I had established a solid position on the team and felt he would listen to me. Not when he treated me the way he did. Then we had Ken Hitchock upstairs. He was a good guy, but then again, he'd done a lot of things and won a Stanley Cup.

Was I supposed to describe to him that I needed to play more? No, it just wasn't the right situation.

Or since I got on that power play even with the Flyers, was I supposed to tell LeClair and Roenick how I would like them to play it? Was I, a young guy from the farm, supposed to tell the stars that I needed this and this? Do it at 17 in Olomouc, my teammates would give me a blanket, that's what I had in mind.

And so I just kept my face on and tried to do something in the moments I got on the ice.

I wasn't very good at it.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Toronto - Carolina. February 23, 2004. A close, fast-paced game. I was very much in the game, as was finally becoming the norm by that time. Shortly before the end of the second period, we went on the ice, on the bullpen in our own end. We won the faceoff backwards, I drove to the left boards, the back skated out from behind the net and said he would pass to me.

But he threw a potato at me.

Yeah... Hot ice, hot in a rink with 20,000 people. It's gonna happen. But I just had a rolling puck fly at my ankles and I started hunting for it underfoot. The middle of the zone parted and Eric Staal flew in between Toronto's defensemen. If I'd given him the stick, he'd have gone to the box himself.

I could feel Bryan McCabe coming at me. Edge. The Maple Leafs' key back then.

I knew I was gonna get hit. It never bothered me, I'm not exactly tiny myself, and if I expect a hit, I can take it. And I would have loved to take it here, because it could have been a chance. But after Erik, I just slapped the puck quickly, so I wouldn't at least screw it up, and braced myself in anticipation of the impact.

Pavel Brendl, ice hockey

But McCabe was just so big and heavy and hit me on the shoulder so hard that my collarbone farted. He rolled me to the ice.

I couldn't catch my breath, what a mess, and as I rolled over, the paramedics were already running after me. But it's okay. I tucked my knees under me and leaned on my arms to get up.

My left one gave way. Like I didn't have it.

I didn't feel any pain, the adrenaline was really working. It wasn't until they took my gear off in the cabin that it all came together and I was suddenly so sore it made me sick to my stomach.

Still, more than anything, I was pissed. Pissed that I'm finally doing well in the NHL, except this injury means I'm going to be out for a long time. Because you can't do anything with a broken collarbone. You can't practice. You can't shoot. I was back in a month, but they just let me finish training and heal up, because we were a few days away from the end of the season.

The next one didn't start because of the strike.

I'm far from being the first or last hockey player whose career was affected by the lockout, I'm not going to complain, but the fact is that if I had any chance to build on what I did in Carolina in early 2004, it's all gone to hell now. On top of that, I made a bad decision when I didn't want to spend the lockout year on the farm. The likes of Pleky in Montreal did it then and laid the foundation for his incredible position with the club, whereas I didn't want to.

This is one of the biggest mistakes of my hockey life.

I made it for one simple reason: Lowell, where the Hurricanes had a backup team, was a horrible hole. A ghetto near Boston where there were shootings in the streets at night. I had spent so much time there during the previous season that the thought of ever having to go there again terrified me. If Carolina had a farm in San Antonio or Chicago, I'm sure I would have thought differently, but when the opportunity came to play at home where my parents could watch me play, I headed to Europe.

Eric Staal stayed on the farm and played with other guys. When the NHL came back a year later, they put him with them rather than Brendel.

Brendl didn't make the first team and ironically ended up back in Lowell.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&


In hindsight, I realize how I had meetings with clubs before the draft, where their managers told me that they wanted me very much and would let me play right away. San Jose, Nashville... But they immediately added that they knew that when they voted, I wouldn't be available for a long time.

That's exactly what happened.

By the time I ended up back in Carolina after the lockout, I was already pressuring my agents. Why aren't they trying to do something about my situation? Then another agent came in and said he had a great Finland for me.

I was seriously considering it and was checking in Carolina to see if they would let me go.

But it was just a few days before Christmas, when the NHL has a no-transfer agreement. And as soon as they could release me, I got the news that I was traded to Phoenix. I don't know if it was a coincidence, or if it was only when I called that something started to happen. But I could hardly leave for Finland when I suddenly saw the light at the end of the tunnel again.

I'll try again this season and then we'll see, I told myself.

Pavel Brendl, ice hockey

But it was no use. I also went straight to the farm, and I didn't record much there either. I found myself in the middle of a mess of players. There were over fifty players in a season.

And it went on and on. I was always being made over. I later found out that I'm best when they don't care about me and let me do what I can do. That's what they did in Sweden. For me, the best country for hockey.

The Swedes didn't care what I looked like. They trusted my abilities.

They say they're cold-hearted, but I don't think that's true. They're just not the affectionate smiley faces that Americans are. If you find your way to them and show them you can do something, you'll find they're sweet people who would cut their teeth for you. They don't crawl up your ass at first, but they let you find your space and express yourself. And if you give what you've got, they'll leave you alone.

That's why I had the best years of my career there.

Later on in Novgorod, Russia, I found a great environment, a coach who understood me, and teammates who I got along with. It was a pity that he was injured every now and then, because otherwise they trusted us and I became the top scorer in the competition in my first season, just like I had done in Sweden before.

The problem came when someone wanted to coach me too much and teach me something again. According to some people, I was a bad skater, and one assistant coach in the extraliga even said he would teach me how to shoot properly.

I looked at him with my mouth open and wondered if I was on the ice rink or in the travel agency.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&


"Brendlik, you're totally awesome. You're great, you're **** up..."

I had a beer with the Spartans the other day. The younger ones remembered me when they started in Beroun, where I trained over the summer. We ended the evening in the mood in the center of Prague, one of them came up to me during the farewell and said this to me.

He thought I was an arrogant, weird dadhole. Why don't I just say it out loud?

Like a lot of other people in Czech hockey, he'd heard God knows what about me. Something someone who might not even know me told them. Even my friends, who are athletes, but also pub owners, hear the question: 'Are you friends with this Brendel? He's weird, isn't he?"

Because I like my peace, I don't talk to journalists, and if anyone writes anything about me, it's just that I'm a jerk who screwed up his career in America and got traded to Ulaanbaatar - so that's why I'm supposed to be weird?

Because I never liked Czech players in foreign teams and preferred to hang out with local guys? Yeah, I figured if I wanted to hear us giggling all the time, I could stay home. It's better for integration into the team and understanding of where I'm playing to hang out with the locals. But none of this means that I wasn't friends with Tomas Divisek and Petya Hubacek in Philadelphia.

I'm learning things about myself second-hand that I never did in my life. One person hears something about me, tells it to another, who tells it to another, who adds something, another exaggerates a bit, and because it fits the idea of the strange patron, the whole story takes on a life of its own and confirms to people that I am - in quotes - an dadhole, as they have heard and read many times anyway.

There was a time when I didn't care. I thought, "What do I care about you?" But when I came back to play in the Czech Republic, it started to bother me because I realized that people here were looking down on me for this.

But now, after my career, I don't care anymore. I have my life and I'm happy with it.

Yes, from a hockey point of view, the NHL and the fact that I didn't break through is still on my mind. I can't say if it SHOULD have been different, but it's eating away at me that it COULD have been different. It absolutely could have been. On the other hand, I tell myself that I was the best scorer in the KHL, the best scorer in the Swedish league, and wherever I went in Europe, I played my part and nobody fired me. Everywhere I went, they kept looking for me. Today, when I see Czech guys going to European competitions as stars of the extra league and two months later they come back crying because they didn't play and score enough goals, I have to laugh. I look at what I've done and I think, "Who's got that?" I'm not counting the goalkeepers we have who are decent, but if three guys have broken through in Europe in the last ten years? Kovář, Kubalík and Červenka?

Yeah, I didn't make the NHL, but otherwise? I don't think it was bad at all. I've left clubs for better conditions. And when the paycheck started to go down, one day I figured it didn't justify the nomadic lifestyle anymore. I figured enough was enough. Twice more I was persuaded by friends - one from Sweden and the other from Finland, because in both cases, unlike in the Czech Republic, I left a good impression - to the lower leagues, but even that was over. I have finished my playing days and I can take stock. I can see what I could have done differently, how I could have behaved and what I messed up. After all these years, you can look at your own life with perspective.

Yes, with the skills I had, my career could have developed better.

But it could also have been worse.

I have left some results behind me in Europe, I and my loved ones are healthy and I have earned a nice life. Isn't that enough?

The Yaroslavl team's plane crash years ago led me to this opinion. The year before, I waited until December to get a job, my agent was unable to find me a suitable position in Russia, even after scoring over sixty goals in two seasons there. But after that fell through, I quickly realized, "What if Yaroslavl had given me the money I wanted..." I would have died there with those great guys who just had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Every time someone feels the need to tell me where I should have been, I realize this and it throws me off.

So I didn't score a thousand points in the NHL. So what?

There are hockey players who have won the Stanley Cup, have half a billion in the bank, but are now wrecks.

Who's better off? Me or them?
Excerpt:
Well, from a hockey perspective, the NHL and the fact that I didn't break through in it is still on my mind. I can't say if it SHOULD have been all that different, but it's eating at me that it COULD have been different. It absolutely could have been. On the other hand, I tell myself that I was the best scorer in the KHL, the best scorer in the Swedish league, and wherever I went in Europe, I played my part and nobody fired me. Everywhere I went, they kept looking for me. Today, when I see Czech guys going to European competitions as stars of the extra league and two months later they come back crying because they didn't play and score enough goals, I have to laugh. I look at what I've done and I think, "Who's got that?" I'm not counting the goalkeepers we have who are decent, but if three guys have broken through in Europe in the last ten years? Kovář, Kubalík and Červenka?

Yeah, I didn't make the NHL, but otherwise? I don't think it was bad at all. I've left clubs for better conditions. And when the paycheck started to go down, one day I figured it didn't justify the nomadic lifestyle anymore. I figured enough was enough. Twice more I was persuaded by friends - one from Sweden and the other from Finland, because in both cases, unlike in the Czech Republic, I left a good impression - to the lower leagues, but even that was over. I have finished my playing days and I can take stock. I can see what I could have done differently, how I could have behaved and what I messed up. After all these years, you can look at your own life with perspective.

Yes, with the skills I had, my career could have developed better.

But it could also have been worse.

I have left some results behind me in Europe, I and my loved ones are healthy and I have earned a nice life. Isn't that enough?

The Yaroslavl team's plane crash years ago led me to this opinion. The year before, I waited until December to get a job, my agent was unable to find me a suitable position in Russia, even after scoring over sixty goals in two seasons there. But after that fell through, I quickly realized, "What if Yaroslavl had given me the money I wanted..." I would have died there with those great guys who just had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Every time someone feels the need to tell me where I should have been, I realize this and it throws me off.

So I didn't score a thousand points in the NHL. So what?

There are hockey players who have won the Stanley Cup, have half a billion in the bank, but are now wrecks.

Who's better off? Me or them?
Tomas
Posts: 3444
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews & news

Post by Tomas »

Dominik Hasek just had a son (Jan) at the age of 56 (his other children are 31&26 years old):

https://isport-blesk-cz.translate.goog/ ... tr_pto=nui
Tomas
Posts: 3444
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews & news

Post by Tomas »

THE STORY OF MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE PLAYER, ONE OF MY FAVORITE COACHES, AND THE BEST POST-GAME INTERVIEW I HAVE EVER SEEN!!



(from Czech "Without Cliches" website. Very long story. No link to PIttsburgh - just a really cool personal story.)

Vinny Prospal: "No way back"




Czech original with some cool pics:
https://www.bezfrazi.cz/pribehy/vaclav- ... sta-zpatky

or very good deep-learning translation through DEEPL.COM of the full article:
There's no going back
Václav Prospal ice hockey


"I'm very happy for the way things turned out tonight..."

Paul Kennedy, the guy who interviewed us in Tampa, nodded because he got the answer he expected to his question. On the bench, where he had caught me thanks to my two goals against Montreal in a 3-2 win, he was about to put the microphone back to himself and ask another question.

But I continued.

"This is the greatest satisfaction I've ever gotten personally as a hockey player."

Paul asked if I could elaborate a bit. The classic short post-game interview, the kind that is broadcast on local TV and on the cube in the arena to usher spectators out of the stands, took on a new dimension that morning.

"Because I lost my roster spot last game and I shouldn't have lost it. And today, I shoved it up somebody's ass."

"I shoved it up to somebody's butt." I said it exactly like that.

Paul stared for a moment before he regained his composure and added a few more questions to shut us up.

No sooner had I appeared in the hallway leading to the cabin then what I had sort of suspected came...

"Vinny **** Prospal! Get into my **** office!"

Torts, Coach John Tortorella, had of course recorded my conversation. And he had no trouble deciphering that the ass I was symbolically shoving into was his. If you don't understand English, know that he immediately called me on the carpet using a word choice of comparable level.

Better said, he called me in for a solid ****. He gave me a lens like a cow, what dare I publicly mock him like that.

All the bad blood was due to a situation from the previous game against Atlanta, where after a few games where I started getting less and less space, I suddenly found myself written into the lineup on the fourth line. Until then, I had been playing steadily in the first line with Vinny Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis and I had the second highest number of goals on the team after Vinny.

It didn't sit well with Torts that he would cut me like that without giving me a hint.

We had a big fight after that game. Years later, I learned something he wouldn't admit to me. That Brad Richards, a great player and a guy who was drafted by Tampa and grew up to be a star in the league under Torts, just wanted to play with Vinny and Marty instead of me. He asked for the job.

The three of them started together against that Montreal team before Torts suddenly threw me back into the lineup after two substitutions.

I came on the ice full of energy, I was always on the puck, creating chances, taking shots and by the end of the first period I scored a goal to make it 2-2. And then in the third period I decided the game.

I was on my knees, thanking the crowd. And that's exactly the emotion that came over me in that interview.

Torts liked it when someone stood up and gave him an opinion. But this was over the line even for him.

They were discussing my performance on national TV, and as the trade deadline was approaching, the host yelled that I was definitely done with this and would go elsewhere.

And I did. Although I continued to shoot well, a few days later I was shipped out to Philadelphia, where I subsequently spent three and a half months without my family in a hotel.

When I found out about the trade, I went to the stadium before the other guys arrived to get my gear. I'm already loaded up, backing out of my seat, and suddenly Torts pulls up not far from me. I'm barely in gear, he's walking right at me.

Something dawned on me, I slammed on the brakes and got out. With a dumpling in my mouth, I shook his hand and said thank you for everything he'd done for me. I guess he was so taken aback that he wished me well too.

If I hadn't bitten back my pissed offness and stopped then, maybe just waved at Torts from behind the wheel, my NHL career might have ended soon.

Two hundred and fifty games sooner than it did.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Don't look left to right and follow the voice of the heart.

That's how you can characterize my journey through the hockey world, but maybe also the way I got my wife Monika. The best person I could ever ask for next to me.

After my second season in the NHL, I was preparing at home in Budejovice in the summer at Mr. Pouzar's gym and that's where I saw her one day.

I knew immediately that she was the one.

I still remember what she was wearing, how her hair was styled, what towel she was wearing. It was so strong. I couldn't stop thinking about her. As soon as I saw her at the gym again, I decided to approach her.

"Hello, would you like to join me for coffee?"

She agreed. We met at the Deep, I arrived in a suit with a blue shirt and wore nice shoes. I was used to this from overseas. I brought a red rose and we went to sit in the cave restaurant Eleonora.

I had Moncha's attention. Maybe it was just the fact that I was polite.

She told me later that someone else had approached her the same day I did. And that she was still in a relationship at the time.

I didn't care either way. I just knew I needed this girl by my side. It was love, it was longing... And it was blindness, because I didn't realize I was going back to Ottawa in three weeks and I was going to leave Moncha behind. So I confidently approached her parents and asked if they would let their barely grown daughter come to Canada with me. That she would have an open return ticket and could come back any time she felt like it. But I can't leave her here for a whole year.

We skipped the dating phase, went straight to living together and got to know each other in more detail than many other couples have in a comparable period of time.

When we came back after a few months and I went to my parents' house and Moncha went back to her parents' house, after three days we couldn't be apart. Since her family owned a hotel in Hluboká, they allocated us an apartment where we stayed for the summer.

Room number 8.

Even when Vinny was born later, and after him Verunka, we still came back here, we always carried bags of stuff at the beginning of the summer and after three months we moved them out again, until we got our own house.

Now we're moving into it for the summer with our four beautiful children.

As I once went into it thinking that I wouldn't give up Moncha, that deep in my heart I felt that way, that feeling is even stronger today. Knowing that you have someone beside you who is your best friend and support is beyond words.

I made the right decision and I stood by my decision. I didn't assume anything other than it would be the way I dreamed it would be.

Just as it had been at the beginning of my career in America.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

When I was eighteen, I worked at a camp all summer.

Just not the kind you'd expect. This wasn't some NHL team camp. It was Long Meadow Camp Resort, where I went after I graduated from a three-year chef-waiter program.

Shortly before that, I had won the European Under-18 Championship, and thanks to the division of the republic, when a lot of guys from Slovakia dropped out, I made the junior national team right away. In the youth league I was scoring almost two points per game.

Still, I saw my path to the Motor team as virtually unrealistic. At that time there was an offense packed with guys like Filip Turek, Roman Horák, Luboš Rob or Radek Bělohlav, and Radek Ťoupal and Roman Božek came back from abroad. There was nowhere to squeeze in and I was definitely not a finished player yet. I thought I'd try the army. Písek, Tábor... I was negotiating the first league and I was grateful that Motor signed me for a symbolic amount at least for the summer training and I could train with them.

In addition, I managed a short-long week at Long Meadow. After training, I changed into my pinglings and rushed off on my mini-bike to earn some money. We used to be open till 10pm, the Dutch and Austrian caravanners liked to go for a cheap beer and I would bring it to their table.

Shortly before that, Vasek Slánský, a Czech scout from Philadelphia, invited me to the Hotel Praha. To meet Inge Hammarström, a Swede who played in the NHL in the 70s and after his career became a Flyers scout. I must have made an impression on both of them, because one Sunday evening in late June 1993, after arriving home from my cottage in Vrábč, I picked up the phone and learned that I had been drafted by Philadelphia the day before.

In the third round, as the fourth Czech that year. A few spots ahead of Miloš Holaně, the best hockey player in our league at that time and a fresh winner of the Golden Hockey Stick. A guy who broke offensive records even as a defenseman.

The Flyers took him, too. But some guy named Venca Prospal, a Budweiser teenager, a waiter at the Dlouhá louka campground, got the nod.

My father and I went to Mr. Pouzar, the president of Motor at the time, to ask him if I saw my chance in the team and if they would let me go to the camp.

A real hockey camp this time. Philadelphia.

Mr. Pouzar had no problem with that. Anyway, the only reason they gave me a minimum contract before was because I was drafted. I found out from my agent, Mira Henyš, what the general manager at the time, Mr. Prazak, said.

"Let Prospal go, he'll never play hockey anyway. If he makes it to the NHL, I'll eat my own shoes."

As far as I know, he hasn't eaten any of his shoes to this day.

But you know what... Criticism is motivation. Everybody can feel differently, but I've always felt that way. Whenever someone doubted me, I was all the more eager to prove them wrong. It drove me to be even better. To prove to myself what I was really good at.

Besides, Mr. Prazak was a good businessman. For the two and a half thousand a month he signed me for, Motor later got $125,000 from Philadelphia. That's how the compensation was set for players under contract at the time.

That was a hell of a lot of money for a dude like that to walk out of here without missing a beat.

When I found out I'd helped my hometown club like that, I was pleased. And I can thank Mr. Prague for that famous comment today. If he had seen something in me when I was 18 and not let me go to America, who knows how my career would have turned out.

I was lucky in that moment alone. It was one of the pieces of the puzzle that, in my case, fit together the way I needed it to. One of the first ones. The others were to follow immediately.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I don't know how I did it with my English at the time, but at my very first meeting with the Flyers management I said that I had already played two years of junior hockey at home and I wanted to move on. And that they don't want me in Motor and I have nowhere else to go, so if I were to go back to the Czech Republic for the season, I don't know who would be interested in me.

It's quite possible that I'd quit hockey.

Maybe they were scared that they would easily lose their high draft pick that they used on me, but anyway, after a few practices with the first team at the camp, they decided to send me to Hershey to the farm, where overseas players could go from the age of 20. As a European, I was allowed to play at eighteen. They gave me a twenty-five game tryout contract to see if I was at least AHL-ready.

Before they sent Milos to me after some time, I was the only Czech there and I didn't know what to do. As a teenager, I suddenly found myself in a completely strange environment with a bunch of tough guys, I had no friends, I didn't know my way around, and I needed to establish myself immediately. To make a difference. To show that I was better than the local boys.

That gave me the best schooling of my life. I saw daily that the only way was to work honestly on myself and trust that it would ultimately show. Trying to be better than yesterday. Every practice, every game. To show that I'm ready for this competition.

If I'm even a player that can think about the NHL.

If my tryout didn't work out, the deal was I'd go to junior in Red Deer. But it never even got to the point where I had to start thinking about it. Because after ten games, they signed me to a five-year contract. That really started my fight for the NHL.

A fight that eventually lasted three and a half years. Three and a half years during which I was told several times that I wasn't going in the right direction.



In my second season, for example, I got to the point where I was stuck between healthy scratches for ten games. I didn't take my clothes off, I watched my teammates from the stands. Every morning I'd look at the lineup on the bulletin board and I wouldn't see my name on it. The morning warm-ups were over, and while the players who had a game that evening went to eat and then rest, the assistant coach was there skating me back and forth for three quarters of an hour.

But he didn't break me.

One time it happened again that I played second line, had a goal and an assist, and the next game I didn't get a single substitution. Not one. For the second period, coach told me to go open the bench.

So I went and opened the bench. Pissed at everybody in the world.

There were times when I cried. I'd come home and I'd get all worked up. I was pounding on my parents' phone, like I did on Monica's shoulder many years later when I was choked up in Tampa at 30 by Torts, so much so that I just had to vent somehow.

But in both cases, I just needed to show my momentary helplessness to those closest to me. Somewhere inside me, I refused to admit that it would bring me down anyway. That I'd be so soft.

Back then on the farm, packing up and going somewhere else wasn't even an option. To another team or back home. I'd be betraying my own vision, which was out of the question.

My vision was that I was gonna lose it. That I'd show everyone that I could do it.

And it was done anyway. Where would I go back to? I haven't made it in the Flyers organization, I haven't made any other teams take notice. And going home? I'd be done. That would mean I didn't make it. My hockey would be over, it wouldn't be. I just couldn't go back.

So when it got to the point where I wasn't even in the lineup ten times in a row, it came in handy that we played cards for shots one weekend at the family place where I was staying. I lost. And what can I tell you, I got drunk as a cattle, changed blood, as they say. We had the second day off, so I ran it out and was ready to go back to practice Monday morning to fight for my job. With the caveat that there was no plan B.

Plan B was unacceptable. I had my plan A and I wasn't changing it.

Because when you change your plan, it's a sign of weakness. That's panic.

My plan was the NHL. That's where I was going.

It was all about desire. It's about how much desire you can find in yourself to get through all these moments when you're totally **** up. When you're stuck on a bus for hours and hours for nothing.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

It's not easy, not everyone can do it, but I did it. Every time, somewhere down there, I found another piece of desire and will. And because I know that it's possible, that it's worth it, I'm sorry for Czech hockey that many guys today don't make it any longer.

After all, even players like Patrik Elias and Petr Sýkora had to work their asses off on the farm before they could convince themselves that they had what it takes. Same with Pleky. There's only a few guys who were so mature and came to their club at such a time that they had the privilege to play among the best and to be paid right away. The rest of us had to be convinced of that first. And then when we earned the move up, we appreciated the chance.

That's exactly it. The farm should still serve to open the player's eyes and make him appreciate what he has.

In my case, a lot of disappointments led to that realization. Year after year at Flyers camp the same scenario - being sent to the farm, which at that point you take like a slap in the face. A slap that knocks you down. But only for a little while, because there's no other way than to start working hard again and convince yourself that you deserve your spot. I know now that this is a process, a plan for the club to develop players. At the time you think it's a bad plan, because you think you've got it down, but then you look at the pictures years later and you're like, what a Canaan, an ear...

No. Everything has its time and evolution.

I'm just seeing it now. Back then, I kept wondering when the **** it was gonna break. Why don't they call me upstairs? I'm already a good player... Oh, ****, I wasn't.

I needed to go through all this. To test for myself my desire, the genuineness of it. Prove to myself and to the people who are rooting for me that I'm the one who's gonna get through this and make it.

The line between success and failure is awfully thin. To this day, when someone says I had a wonderful career, I reply that I was lucky. And that's how I really feel. At the same time, I've been lucky, I haven't been discouraged.

I guess it's in your genes to be in the mood for that. I've got it 100% there, plus I threw myself into an environment where it's totally common when I was 18. An environment where only the strongest get ahead. The ones who really have it.

Maybe they've really been testing me all this time to see if I'm gonna make it. If I'm like a lot of other people who didn't bite long enough and didn't end up playing in the NHL when objectively they could have. Simply because they couldn't handle situations like sitting in the stands for ten games in a row.

I mean, I had a thunderous slap in the face at the start of my fourth season on the farm. Before that, we moved from Hershey to Philadelphia, where they built a new arena and put a brand new AHL club in the old one, called the Phantoms. My dream job was just 500 yards across the parking lot.

Billy Barber, our coach, told me at the end of the previous season to practice over the summer, that he'd build it on me. "I will play the **** out of you," he said, literally. With that said, he would give me the opportunity to win in all game situations so that the Flyers would finally take me up. Those five hundred yards across the parking lot were dwindling... And then the opening two games of the new season we played away didn't go so well. So before the first home game in Philadelphia Phantoms history, I waved to the stands from the bench in my suit as a healthy scratch.

That was a cruel humiliation for me.

But it was a Sunday game, whereas the next one wasn't until the following Friday. Over the week, I was back practicing on the elite line and Billy put me in the offensive line with Steven King. I scored a hat trick with him the first time and added two assists.

That's where it all broke down, and from that point on it was a beauty ride on my part.

Suddenly, it was like everything fell into place. It was like I had an advantage over the other young players because I've been playing farm ball since I was 18 and I had a two-year head start.

When they called me up, I had 95 points in 63 games. Thirty-two goals, sixty-three assists. I led the league in productivity.

I never went back to the farm from that point on. As they say overseas, I finally paid my dues.

I've paid my dues.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

March 5th is a date that will always remain in my heart.

On the fifth of March, Vivinka, our youngest daughter, was born. March 5th is the birth of Coco, our Maltese.

And on March 5th, 1997, I played my first NHL game.

On the fourth night, after our game on the farm, my coach told me I was playing for the Flyers the next day against New Jersey. I didn't have to go to the morning skate, they were gonna move my stuff. I'd just come in.

So I came. I opened the door to that big, beautiful booth and entered the world I'd wanted to be a part of for so long.

I was rummaging through my hockey sticks in the rack and noticed the lineup written on the board.

Let me see where they put me.

I'm coming up from the bottom, looking around the fourth line, but no Prospal anywhere.

I don't know if this whole thing was just... Dude!

Suddenly, I'm written in between LeClair and Renberg on the first line. In place of the injured Eric Lindros, team captain and absolute superstar of his era.

I'm so hot. On the one hand, I was excited and determined to show what I had. On the other hand, I thought, "Don't **** anything up.

But whatever, just play your best.

I sat down in my seat where my jersey was waiting. I remember exactly the feeling when I first touched the hanger where the logo hung facing the booth. I slung it over my left shoulder, as I always had my whole career, started to get my sticks ready and watched what was going on around me. What routines the other guys were going through, how they were warming up, how they were reacting, how they were acting...

We lost that time 1:3, but even though I didn't score, it was probably not bad on my part. Coach Terry Murray put me on the ice for the final power play, which was a signal that I probably showed something.

My second game ended in defeat, 2-3 in Pittsburgh.

But I scored both of our goals.

We get back to Philly, I'm walking down the hallway at the rink to practice, and suddenly Eric Lindros. This mountain of flesh is coming right at me. I'm staring open-mouthed at him, and I'm amazed, and he says, "Congratulations. But don't ****, you're gonna lose me my job."

He smiled.

I look at him with a furrowed brow, I smile too, but I didn't know what to say to him.

I didn't lose his job anyway. Rather, I even got him on the power play when he came back. A guy who played junior hockey in Budějovice a few years back was suddenly figuring out how to pass to the MVP of the best league in the world.

I was scoring points, I was playing a lot, so I was getting comfortable and... relaxing.

I remember on my first flight to Pittsburgh, the guys around me were shuffling their cards around in their loafers while I sat with my arms on the armrests, my shirt buttoned up to my neck, laced up so tight I could barely breathe.

"Vinny, **** relax. Relax," Scotty Daniels, who was called Chief because of his Indian heritage, hollered at me.

I had tremendous respect for the environment I was in. I was careful not to stand out, to behave properly.

Cause if I did stupid things, I might get a stick through my back from Ron Hextall.

Seriously, the legends don't lie about him. He was really strict. I saw him rip a teammate who gave him a goal on his first shot with a blueline. Hexie went for the puck, timed it, and being the great shooter he was, even with a goalie stick, he hit the kid right on the head.

And nobody, including the ripped guy himself, said half a word.

In my very first season, we went all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals, which I took to mean at the time that I would have many more opportunities like that. I didn't quite understand why some of the older guys were crying when we didn't make it. I mean, we'll be back in the fall and we can get back on track...

I didn't know I'd never get another chance like this again.

Mostly, I also lived in the belief that I would play my whole career in Philadelphia. That's how I knew it from home. You didn't transfer here. Most of the guys played in one place their whole lives.

That's why I made my first trade during the upcoming season.

I was coming off a broken ankle, which cost me Nagano when I was part of the first announced roster, and then the January All-Star Game saw the trade of two high draft picks for Pat Faloon - Alexander Daigle from Ottawa. I was probably just sort of thrown into the mix. I broke my wrist during the previous playoffs, and now my ankle... I guess the Flyers thought I would continue to have injury problems. So they sent me away.

My early days with the Senators, it was one big struggle, but year after year I got better and proved to myself that I could play second center on a good NHL team. And thanks to a lot of excuses from experienced guys, I made the 2000 World Championship team and contributed to one of the pieces of the golden hat trick.

But it was being part of a successful championship that marked another major turning point in my career and ultimately in my life. The championships interfered with my established post-season schedule in such a way that I was not physically prepared enough, and it showed.

I played really bad.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

My father was a hockey player, too. You can find his name in the historical stats of Motor, but he played most of his career in Vimperk when the first league was there. I have the most memories of that time as a kid, running around the booth and the rink where he used to take me. Thanks to him, hockey has been in my blood since I was a kid. My dad was a rapist, but we had a fantastic friendship. He raised me to be a man who knew how to do his own thing.

It's been over 20 years since we've talked.

It started with him not biting, me outgrowing him hockey-wise, and at some point he became independent. And that I found a woman who stood firmly by my side.

He thought Monica was only marrying me because I had a lot of money, and he was showing it.

Her family was much better off financially than I was with my NHL paycheck.

But the main dispute started in the summer a year after the championship in St. Petersburg, when I didn't make the national team after a bad season. We already had a little Vinny at our cottage in Vrábč, and we talked about hockey with our parents, while my dad persistently put me down. Maybe it was just his way of building me up to be better, but Monča couldn't stand it anymore and stood up for me. She spoke up in the sense that my dad should support me, not just put me down all the time. We all had a fight.

Our relationship was getting very frayed, we started to drift apart, and that must have had an effect on what Mom experienced with Dad afterwards. He always liked a life of fun, alcohol and, unfortunately, women. But it's one thing to go out and have fun with your buddies, it's another to be rude, violent and have absolutely no respect for the people closest to you. There's no point in discussing it any further, it's even been in the papers once. Dad just did things a man shouldn't do to his wife.

Then he snitched on me and Monica for ten thousand bucks to the newspaper Blesk and finished it off by saying that I owed him seven and a half million for raising me to be such a hockey player.

What kind of dad lets that out of his mouth?

A lot of his friends have turned on him because of his behavior. Some of the ones that stayed tried to talk to me over the years, telling me how sorry he was that we weren't talking.

Yeah, I'm sorry, too. I know we both made mistakes and that he's just my dad and I practically lost him on the cusp of adulthood. We're getting older, my kids never got to know their grandpa. The only time he kept Vinny, he never even saw the girls. But that's the way it's gonna end, because I don't see a way back. There are times when I feel terribly sorry for the whole thing, but that's just the way life has turned out and I'll always stand my ground. Even with my emotional displays within hockey, I realize how much more conciliatory and thoughtful I am as I get older, some situations are just over the line.

In some cases, your parents divorce and you can continue to be close to both. But there has to be some respect, and in our case, that just disappeared. So when you add heart to rational explanations, the choice is simple.

No. Just no.

I'm convinced that, for all my understandable regrets, I'm doing the right thing, and I'm okay with that. And I'm reassured by my beautiful relationship with my mom.

And Monica, of course. I wouldn't be who I am without her. What we have together, what we've been through and what we're going to go through, no one else could have given me. Monika gave herself to me unconditionally. No matter what, in a relationship, and especially in a relationship with a top athlete, one has to sacrifice for the benefit of the other. I wasn't always fully aware of that, I didn't always do the right thing, but the older I get, the more clear I am about it. Especially now, as a coach, I see how many guys don't have the support they need in their girls. All it takes is for them to have their first child or start living in the same household together and it completely derails them.

We also had to adjust certain things, it wasn't always rosy, but we learned to live together and most importantly, Monika always stood by me. In good moments and bad moments, in moments when I sacrificed my family for my hockey, she was always by my side and handled everything.

Just all those moves when we started all over again on the other side of America...

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I just needed it, to show joy. Emotions.

That's why when I tied the game at 4-4 in the third period against the Rangers, who had a fantastic lineup full of greats back in 2002, I pumped in euphoria in front of their bench.

The next inning I was joined by Matthew Barnaby, a guy who wasn't afraid to drop the gloves. We knew each other, he played with us in Tampa earlier that season before he was traded.

"Vinny, you do something like that again, disrespecting the New York Rangers and those proud guys sitting in that dugout, and I'm gonna smack you so hard you didn't see it coming."

I looked at him to see if he was kidding, but he was dead serious. And the older I got, the more I understood what he was up to.

At the same time, for me, goals were something that always sparked an eruption of enthusiasm. I used to scream like crazy every time. Perhaps only when I was losing by a big margin did I keep the celebration to myself in my head, but otherwise I let it out the way I felt.

And why not? You can never have too many goals.

I loved it when I passed to someone and they scored, when we asserted ourselves as a five-man unit, when we popped up on the bench to high-five the guys off the ice who had just scored, but I equally loved the feeling of being the one who moved the score. The important thing for me was the feeling that I helped the team and rewarded myself for the effort I put into hockey. For all the hard work that kept me at the NHL level and secured me a decent spot there.

I showed my joy after my goals with what I brought to the rink every day for my team. Energy. Passion. The appetite for the game.

I showed my love for the sport to my teammates and fans with every hoot and holler and jump after goals. My joy in the little things that went right.

It feels right. I mean, good humor works in your favor. It strengthens the people around you, it brings you together, it gives everything a boost. It takes you up a level. Joyful emotions are contagious. And if you infect enough people around you, everything gets better. The guys on the team love each other and want to have those moments again and again, that's what drives them.

Just keep it going. If it's not live, it doesn't have to be.

On the other hand, if somebody gets grumpy, two or three others will pick it up and it'll spread. That's wrong.

I've had a lot of bad sleep myself, dealt with some tough stuff in my personal life led by my parents' divorce, but hockey, for me, was an escape from it all. As soon as I stepped on the ice, I got sucked in and my problems were over for a while. I put them behind me and enjoyed my passion, my fun.

And that's how I've established myself as a leader over the years. I was able to shout it out, yell it out, encourage it even in training. As long as there weren't any wet chickens running around. Now, when I saw some of the teams in the league, when I saw the atmosphere in their training sessions, you could hear a pin drop, I thought, what the ****... These guys are young and they have a chance to be professional athletes. They've got a chance to be on the ice every day, so let them enjoy it, because one day it's gonna end. Oftentimes, they don't get to decide. Why is it that the people who enjoy it the most are the ones who just go out and play? I mean, we all grow up loving the sport... But it seems to me that for some people, that love fades away over time and they just need to either make a living or just cruise through life from one point to the next.

I think that's wrong. I think you have to live in the here and now and enjoy it.

By helping pass that passion on to my teammates, I helped my coaches and it was one of my roles that helped me stay in the NHL for so long. It's details like that that your bosses notice.

And that doesn't cost anything. Just being in the right place at the right time. The desire to get better and make an impact on the people around you.

Of course, to do that, I've been working on hockey stuff. I was a student of the game, watching the details of my teammates and opponents. How who plays the puck, how they shoot... Like Dave Andreychuk, our captain in Tampa. With all due credit to his career, he was a groper who barely crossed the court. But he lived in the forecheck. What went around the net, he had. He ran, he finished, he scrambled... I used to watch him do things like take a shot on the back boards in practice and bounce the puck from the first to the net. Or aiming for the goalie's concrete and going right for the rebound. I thought about those details and tried to incorporate them into my game.

I was so immersed in it that I gradually knew, for example, who in the NHL had both a stripped stick and its brand. Who has what kind of skates or gloves. That was ultimately what made me better, too, because it helped my peripheral vision, my split-second decision-making. In scrums, I could tell which stick was Vinny Lecavalier's, I could see through the clutter of bodies to where Marty St. Louis was skating because I recognized him by his skates.

I looked for every loophole, every little thing that could move me forward.

And some of them found me.

I can still remember a situation when I was a young beak for Ottawa and I stood on a faceoff against Mark Messier when he played for Vancouver. He was a tremendous player, a workhorse, and not for nothing is the individual award for the league's best leader named after him. Among other things, he won the Stanley Cup six times.

And against this Messier, I'm suddenly the one who's in tune. He sent a great pass across the zone to Näslund on the power play earlier, and he scored, so as we're standing up on the boards, I say to him, "Nice pass." Like he really did.

He just looked at me with his steady gaze. His facial expression hasn't changed at all. Not a millimeter. It's like he's saying, "**** you, who are you?" If he was some kind of softie, maybe he'd smile or say thank you and be happy that I appreciated him as an opposing player.

Messier's not. Messier was ready to roll over me.

At the time, I thought, what kind of dadhole doesn't even say thank you. It wasn't until time passed that I realized what he was doing then. That he was showing leadership just by not talking to his opponent.

John Tortorella, for example, forbade us to do that in Tampa.

And now the game against Buffalo, I'm on the left wing, Ales Kotalik is on the right. He started talking right away.

"Kotalik, I can't **** talk to you," I muttered through my closed mouth without looking at him. "Torts is eating off our lips, dude."

Today, Ales and I can laugh about it together, but even as a coach, I hate it when we come out of the locker room after a timeout, both teams circling the ice and the players talking to their opponents. Dude! People want to watch two teams going at it, cutting each other's throats off. Not a buddy-buddy shag.

So at least pretend you don't know each other! Take it seriously, show some respect for the game that feeds you.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I'm not an advocate of change. I was willing to take a lower salary than I was offered elsewhere.

But damn it, I just couldn't turn this down. If I had a crystal ball back then, I honestly don't know if I would have made a 100% different decision anyway.

After my best season to that point, I became an unrestricted free agent in 2003 at the age of twenty-eight and could choose from offers from anyone in the league. My agent was presenting me with opportunities to make money elsewhere, and my eyes were crossing. Up until then, I was making a million and a half dollars a year, and suddenly I was on a whole other level. Still, my priority was to stay in Tampa, where I had developed a great position and Monica and I liked life there. We were also targeting a long-term contract because of our two kids, so we could at least have some security.

We started communicating with the Lightning, saying I wanted three million a year for five years.

General manager Jay Feaster offered two and a half for three years. When my agent and myself talked to him personally, he upped it to 2.75.

At the same time, I had an offer on the table from Anaheim, the last Stanley Cup finalist, for six and a half million the first year. And then four more years at 2.9. I got a call from Petr Sykora, and he told me to come over and we'd play together and it would be great. Same coach, Mike Babcock, said the team is great, strong, they're signing Sergei Fedorov and they're going to put me at center. And my wife's gonna love Orange County.

Still, if I was getting three million a year in Tampa, I'd let all that go, including the incredible signing bonus.

I just got to the point where Jay stopped communicating with my agent.

I got a call from Torts on the golf trip to Bechyna, which means he doesn't want to lose me. I let my whole flight go, saying I was going to miss the next holes, and I hung on the phone with him for a long time explaining the situation. And he's like, "Vinny, **** it, **** the money. How much do you want?"

I told him my idea, and he said it wasn't much in my situation. And I said, "If they give it to me, I'll turn Anaheim down.

Then I get a call from my agent saying that Jay brought in a player named Cory Stillman during the draft. A left wing for $2.5 million a year. "Hey, he took somebody else in your place," he tells me.

So I went to Anaheim.

There, the season went absolutely awry, my productivity dropped twenty-five points, we knew from Christmas that we weren't going to the playoffs, we got pinched by the Americans in the quarterfinals of the home World Cup shootout, and... And Tampa Bay won the Stanley Cup. The guys I spent the previous two years with.

Pavel Kubina, Martin Cibak and Basa Neckar drove this holy grail of hockey around their hometowns while I practiced my shot on the eighth hole.

I'm not gonna lie, the signing bonus on the bill wasn't a bad thing. Who gives you that kind of money? Plus, the NHL didn't get going in the fall, the lockout came, and after that all the players had to automatically cut twenty-four percent of their salaries down. So I'm down to the $2.5 million, and then Jay trades me back to Tampa.

He turned out to be a genius manager. He won the Stanley Cup without Prospal, who he got back for the money he originally offered.

Because it still pisses me off to this day how the whole thing turned out, I took him out for coffee after his career and asked him to explain why he didn't sign me at the time.

"Vinny," he tells me. "Your agent was a dick and I just didn't want to talk to him anymore."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I met John Tortorella in early 1997, shortly before I was first called up to the Flyers. I was selected for the AHL All-Star Game, where he was the Rochester coach and led our selection.

He was already passionate as hell, which resulted in me coming back to Philly just as beat up as the other guys, getting elbowed in the mouth. There was no carnival game going on, Torts just wanted to win that exhibition, too. That speaks volumes about his passion.

When I asked to be traded to Ottawa after my crappy season in Ottawa, and I was no better in Florida, I was traded to Tampa, which Torts was already managing. I was brought in to fill in for Vinny Lecavalier, who was negotiating a contract and was in danger of missing the start of camp.

That's how it ended up, but only for two days. Now what about me? I wandered the roster and started the season at center on the fourth line.

At the same time, I liked what Torts set up from the first moment. I was back in great shape and could handle the left back-heavy workouts that he had insisted on. You can't touch the puck with him the first two days of camp. You're just knocking it around and he's watching you suffer. Literally.

That was his intention, it gave him pleasure to watch a player get exhausted and have to overcome the moment when he couldn't. He wanted to see how someone behaved when they had to hit rock bottom. Because that time comes later in the season in games, and that's how he finds out how somebody reacts.

He drives, he watches, he observes. He pretends to keep track of the times, but he doesn't give a **** about them in the finals. That's how he explained it to me, at least years later, in hindsight.

And I guess he was interested in me, so he tried to use me as much as he could. He'd put me on the power play, and as soon as someone got hurt, he'd move me up the lineup. Probably because of the way I took my situation - I didn't complain and gratefully accepted the position that came up, continued to keep my morale and enthusiasm for the game high in practice, and played through injuries - I fit his mold. The way I expressed myself was in line with his view of hockey, we found our way to each other pretty quickly.

Even though the first season didn't go so well, by the second season he made me an assistant captain and eventually put me with Vinny and Ruslan Fedotenko, with Marty St. Louis filling in. I went from someone who came in as a temporary patch to a top two player.

It was then that I addressed my departure to Anaheim and Torts stood up for me publicly. He said that he wanted the front office to keep me. That's the kind of words that make any player happy.

When I came back two years later, there were times when Torts was tougher on me. When he even choked me so hard that a couple of guys had to come to him and tell him to let me play more, that they needed me. He probably interpreted my character based on my flip-flop with the new contract to mean that I only cared about my own points and didn't care so much if we won or lost. That's why he stepped on my neck, to show me for who I really am.

And even then, I stood up to it. Even though I cried to my Monica at home sometimes.

Sometimes it was hell under Torts, yeah. But it made a difference, and the way he worked, it just worked for me. He knew how to push the right buttons in my brain to get the best out of me.

Torts is the best coach I've had in the NHL. Definitely.

His style is my own, and I want to present myself the same way in my coaching career. Even if it takes a lot of nerves and vocal cords. I'm a firm believer that players need to know that the coach is in it with them, that he's going into battle with them and doesn't care how it turns out. I myself didn't like coaches who just stood behind the bench and said nothing. I'd rather get a good scolding after every substitution, but at least I knew right away where I stood. I knew the coach was giving me feedback.

Torts' was pretty wild, too, but he just wanted to bring out some emotion in the players. He really appreciated it when someone spoke out against him.

I've seen him fight one of his players between periods. I wasn't surprised at all when he wanted to fight Bob Hartley from Calgary years ago as Vancouver's coach. That was just Torts as we all know him.

Even together we could fight like cattle, he wanted it that way. He'd **** with you till hell, but the next day he'd forget about it and move on. And he kept a strict separation between work and personal.

And that's evidenced by our story about the post-match interview and my subsequent exchange.

But... If it wasn't for Torts, there wouldn't have been 1100 games of Venci Prospal in the NHL.

I did come back to Tampa, but right after the first year of my contract, general manager Brian Lawton called me in, saying he couldn't have a player on his first two lines who wasn't going to score 20 goals a season.

I had nineteen that year.

A month later I found out I was being paid out of my contract. The free-agent market was already overbought, and suddenly I had no job at thirty-three.

That's when Torts saved my career. He was already the coach of the New York Rangers, and he reached out to me immediately. He knew exactly what kind of work I would do for him in the locker room and on the ice, he knew I wouldn't cost much money, and I didn't hesitate about his offer. I didn't think twice.

It wasn't until after I signed the contract that I had doubts...

I actually changed my whole summer training. At the end of the previous season, when I was looking to move on and sat down with our conditioning coach in Tampa, he told me I'd been training like I was training for a marathon all year.

He completely overhauled my plan. I went from the long bike rides I was used to to a completely different type of training. Dynamic, explosive speed exercises. I lost about eight pounds.

With no idea what it would do to me, I joined the Rangers camp, where Torts' killer appetites were again to be expected. The result? I came quicker, everything was easier... I was handling his workouts better than I ever had before.

I figured this was the way to stay in the NHL.

I came to the Rangers with no idea what my role would be. As long as I got a job. Then a month later, we're sitting in a team meeting before a game in Vancouver, and I'm watching Torts' assistant Jimmy Schoenfeld point a laser at me.

"Tonight's gonna be about you," he says.

Torts went into the season with only one assistant captain and said he'd watch how we performed before picking a second.

I became that guy. I'm still emotional about it now.

It wasn't even twenty games after I was bought out of Tampa that I became an assistant captain with the New York Rangers. The original six team, one of the founding clubs of the NHL. I'll never forget the day I saw that A stitched on my blue jersey and had the solidification that I had reached a position that many of the other great players I was playing with at the time hadn't reached.

It was a reward for what I was giving to hockey.

Everyone was already sitting in the training center booth in shorts, at the start of a well-deserved day off. After losing the Stanley Cup Finals 0-4 to Detroit in 1997, my first season in Philadelphia, and drinking for two days, we gathered for exit meetings with management.

Suddenly someone says, "We're still missing Rodie. Do you know where he is?"

The door leading out of the gym opened and in walked Rod Brind'Amour. In a completely sweaty shirt. On the third day of a long and challenging season, he had already had a workout.

That's also why he'd won the Cup at the end of his career in Carolina. Because he was a beast, a go-getter, doing his absolute best to succeed.

I don't dare compare myself to Rodio, if only because I didn't win the Cup as a player, but I know that I was also called a model professional after the NHL. In a lot of situations I've heard someone praise my character and coaching ethic, either directly or vicariously. And when I was coaching the Tampa Scorpions youth team a while back, I'm watching a tournament, and he's Jay Leach, my former coach from Hershey. He was scouting for his college team.

He's the one who left me out of the lineup for ten games on the farm that year.

I didn't hold it against him, I was glad to see him after all, he was my first coach in America. I introduced him to my son. Jay asked him all sorts of hockey questions before telling him in between talking: "If your dream is to play professionally, take a page from your dad's book. He **** wanted it."

"He had the **** will."

Yeah, that's what you want your kid to hear. A lot of things I'm trying to pass on to Vinny from my experience as a father, but I can't really tell him what a dude I was. That would sound stupid. But if someone who's had a chance to get to know me up close tells him about me, it warms his heart.

Besides, my will is still the same. I still have the same goal I've had all these years as a player.

I'll never forget watching the first game of the season after I returned to Tampa from Anaheim, the guys on the ice watched a flag commemorating the Stanley Cup win go up to the ceiling of the arena. The fanfare, the electrifying atmosphere, the entire arena goosebumps...

And me, Rob DiMaio and Switzerland's Timo Helbling stood on the sidelines because we just didn't win it with the others.

To this day, when I go to the stadium in Tampa and I see that banner under the roof, it hurts.

But it's still the same with me as it's been my whole life: I take it as motivation. It's a goal I'm always chasing.

That silver grail is still there in front of me somewhere, someone else deserves to win it every year, and my desire to be one of those who gets that privilege is still burning.

It's hot as ****.

If I didn't make it as a player, I'll go for it in another role. Until I'm done in the hockey world for good, I'm going to keep living for this dream.

I'm not giving up. I don't have a plan B.


Excerpts:

Torts is the best coach I've had in the NHL. Definitely.
....
"Vinny, you do something like that again, disrespecting the New York Rangers and those proud guys sitting in that dugout, and I'm gonna smack you so hard you didn't see it coming."
....
"Vinny," he tells me. "Your agent was a dick and I just didn't want to talk to him anymore."
...
...
...
To this day, when I go to the stadium in Tampa and I see that banner under the roof, it hurts.

But it's still the same with me as it's been my whole life: I take it as motivation. It's a goal I'm always chasing.

That silver grail is still there in front of me somewhere, someone else deserves to win it every year, and my desire to be one of those who gets that privilege is still burning.

It's hot as ****.

If I didn't make it as a player, I'll go for it in another role. Until I'm done in the hockey world for good, I'm going to keep living for this dream.

I'm not giving up. I don't have a plan B.
Tomas
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Translated (Czech) hockey interviews & news

Post by Tomas »

Tomas wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 7:00 pm Dominik Hasek just had a son (Jan) at the age of 56 (his other children are 31&26 years old):

https://isport-blesk-cz.translate.goog/ ... tr_pto=nui
Regarding Hasek family...
(this is the first time I found out. Her group finished 22nd in the Eurovision finals. Eurovision is strangely a big deal in Europe....)

Tomas
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Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews & news

Post by Tomas »

Jiri Hrdina & Rammstein








and also:

Image
Tomas
Posts: 3444
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:28 am

Translated (Czech) hockey interviews & news

Post by Tomas »

The "Without Cliches" website finally started their English version with translation of stories of athletes interesting for international audience (not surprisingly, many NHLers are there). I posted several stories translated by DeepL.com throughout the last year in this thread, but I bet the translations posted by the website will be even better...

Enjoy!

https://www.bezfrazi.cz/stories

PS: I *think* that there are several West Ham United fans on this forum (@willeyeam, @RonnieFranchise maybe?). There are two WHU stories (Miklosko, Coufal ) on that website.
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