The gangbangers of Slovenian hockey

For many NHL fans, Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings put Slovenia on the hockey map with his dazzling 61-point rookie season last year. But this former Yugoslav republic of 2 million had already made its mark in the elite division of the IIHF World Championships as early as the 2002 tournament in Sweden.

Slovenia had less than 1,000 registered players in 2006-07 (738 senior men, 149 junior men, and 62 women), and its ability to compete among the top 16 hockey nations is truly remarkable.

Today, I dug through the stack of media guides I’ve accumulated over years of covering the World Championships, and re-discovered one of my all-time favorites: the 2003 Slovenian guide.

Some NHL clubs create media guides that seem as if they’re trying to hide the fact that their players do anything but accumulate hockey statistics. Not the Slovenians.

Here are some of the endearingly phrased highlights from the sections on each player’s background, personality and hobbies in that ’03 guide.

#18 Gregor Poloncic – Forward

“A gangbanger – loves parties”
“Kills for chocolate”

#2 Bojan Zajc – Defenseman

“Studies the unexploited energy in the nature (tree as biggest reserve)”

#9 Tomaz Razingar – Forward

“His is distinguishing himself with lightning breakthroughs and precise passes”

#21 Boris Pretnar – Forward

“Spends his spare time preferably in mountains”

#33 Ivo Jan – Forward

“Scored for almost every team and has that rare ability that is usually called ‘great nose around the net'”

#10 Mitja Sivic – Forward

“Shopping (buying clothes and shoes)”
“His father is a known producer of hockey clubs”

Slovenia will go up against Canada, the USA, and Latvia in Group B of the Preliminary Round at the 2008 IIHF World Championship in Halifax.

del.icio.us Digg it Furl iFeedReaders Netscape RawSugar reddit StumbleUpon Yahoo MyWeb YardBarker

Leave a Reply