Anticipation runs high among Czech NHLers

Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2004

By Lucas Aykroyd

Not every Czech NHL star will be suiting up for the national team at the 2004 IIHF World Championships, but you can be sure that all of them will be keeping tabs on their nation’s prospects of winning it all on home ice for the first time since 1985. IHWC.NET spoke with some Czech NHLers to learn about their feelings about this year’s tournament and their memories from previous World Championships:

Radek Bonk, Ottawa Senators: I don’t know exactly what the atmosphere back home is like, because I’m over here, obviously, but hockey is a great sport. Everybody loves it back home. It’s going to be a great event. Already last summer people were getting excited about the World Championships. We’re going to have a new arena in Prague, and people are excited about that too. When I was a kid, I watched the World Championships every single year. That was your dream growing up. We didn’t dream about the NHL. We wanted to play for the national team at the World Championships and the Olympics. After school, you’d rush home and watch every game you could. It’ll be good to have players like Jaromir Jagr representing us there in the Czech Republic. Hopefully we’re going to have a good team that can go all the way. We won a lot of tournaments from 1998 to 2001, but I don’t think there was any “secret” to our success. We had some great players at that time. Now, there’s a new wave of younger players coming in. I think we’ll do well in the years coming up. My personal favorite international hockey memory was when I was part of the team that won the World Championships in 1996. That year, Ottawa didn’t get into the playoffs, so I was able to go over and win a gold. Roman Turek stole the show in Vienna. He was the best goalie for sure in that tournament.

Marek Zidlicky, Nashville Predators: I don’t know why I haven’t played at the World Championships in the past. Perhaps you should ask the coaches! I should point out that last year I had a pulled muscle in my leg. It’s probably tougher to get noticed when you’re playing in Finland instead of the Czech Republic or the NHL. My hometown of Kladno is very close to Prague, just ten miles away. It’s going to be great there with the new Sazka Arena opening. It’s a great thing for the whole Czech Republic, just perfect. I played with Jaromir Jagr a little bit in Kladno in 1994-95 during the lockout. He’s a good guy. I think he’s the best player in the world, and he will play very well in this tournament. Hockey is number one is Kladno, and we’ve produced a lot of good players. My favorite international hockey memory is watching the Czechs win the gold in Nagano in 1998, but I’d have to say my role model over here is Brian Leetch.

Marek Malik, Vancouver Canucks: They’ve completely renovated the rink in my hometown of Ostrava, so that should be good. Hockey is huge in Ostrava, although in fairness, soccer might even be a bit bigger right now, because the soccer team is leading the Czech league, and they’ve played very well the last few years. These two sports are always number one and number one. We’ve had a few guys from there who have played in the NHL. Perhaps the most famous is Richard Smehlik. He won the Cup last year in New Jersey. There’s also Filip Kuba from Minnesota, Pavel Kubina from Tampa Bay, Vaclav Varada in Buffalo, and Martin Prusek with Ottawa, to name a few. Growing up, the World Championships were always the highlight of the hockey calendar, no question about it. I’ve never had a chance to play there, so I don’t have any personal experiences. But you know, guys like Dopita and Patera were the base of our national team the last few years, even though they didn’t play much in the NHL. The coaches did a very good job, bringing in others to support them. It’s a challenge all the countries have to meet, whether it’s us, Sweden, Finland, Russia. You can’t always count on how many guys you’ll get from the NHL, in case some are injured or still in the playoffs. It does put the main focus on the European players.

Martin Havlat, Ottawa Senators: It’s good to hear that our new arena in Prague will be ready on time. That was a big question mark over the last two years. I think it’s a big thing for hockey. Our people would like to see the Czechs win again. They changed our coaching staff after the 2002 Olympics, and that was my first big tournament. So now I think we’re going to see some more new, young players. It’s up to the coaches. They have to find the right mix of players from the Czech Extraleague and from the NHL. It’s worked well except the last couple of years, when we haven’t been able to win a medal. Guys like Jiri Dopita and Pavel Patera played all their life over in Europe and were great on the big ice surface, where there’s not as much hitting and it’s not as tight of a game. It’s a little bit different. When they came here, they weren’t the youngest guys. So it’s pretty tough to change your game when you’ve played one way your whole life. In the NHL, it’s all about getting chances on the ice and playing with the right players. When it comes to the Czech-Slovak rivalry, you have to remember that we used to be all together in Czechoslovakia. Since we divided into separate countries, every game against the Slovaks has been a pretty big game. I think we’ve got many more wins than they do at this point, and we usually win in the big tournaments. But they’ve got a great team, and I’m sure they could surprise some people at the Worlds or the World Cup. We want to beat them, they want to beat us. It’s a healthy rivalry.

Roman Cechmanek, Los Angeles Kings: The 2000 World Championships in St. Petersburg were very special for me, being named the top goalie, but I’ve also had many other good experiences in my hockey life. We played great in that tournament and we won. We’ve had a very good national team the last few years, and I think we play great just about every season. I remember in 2000, Robert Reichel made a great shot from the blueline to beat Canada in the semi-finals. We beat those guys twice. Then playing against the Slovaks in the final was special, as it was the first time that happened. We won 5-3. At the World Championships, you’re facing some different players than in the NHL. It’s only two weeks, so you need to be very focused. Every team tries to build and get better game by game. We’ll see how our guys handle the pressure of playing at home this year. I think we have very good fans, and they’ll help the team. I’m sure we’ll have a great chance to win the tournament. There are maybe six teams that could win in any given year. We’ll see. We’ve had some good goalies coming up in the Czech Republic, too, like Roman Malek and Adam Svoboda.

Jaroslav Modry, Los Angeles Kings: It’s going to be tremendous. It’s quite an honor for our country, and we’ve got lots of great fans back there who really love the game. They’ve built a brand new rink in Prague, and I know Ostrava will be the other venue. I hear the tickets are already sold out and people are very excited about the tournament. For me, representing my country in Finland last year was almost like a dream come true. I grew up as a kid idolizing and cheering for the players who represented us internationally, and watching all those World Championships. Now it’s something that I can always be proud of and look back on and show it to my kids. I remember in 1985, the championships were held in Prague and Czechoslovakia won. It was a tremendous boost for hockey. I’ve had a chance to play with some of the guys who were in that ’85 tournament, and they told me stories about how the fans supported them and really helped them get over the hump. You know, back then you could be facing some really powerful opponents, like the Russian team when they were on top of their game, but our guys found a way to beat them. It was special. I have a bunch of friends back home who are planning to go watch the games. There’ll definitely be a little incentive to beat our Slovak neighbors, too. We’re building a good rivalry with them, and they also have a very good hockey team. It’s special, because we used to be one country, and now we’re going to be playing against them on our home turf, so to speak. It should be really fun.

Martin Rucinsky, Vancouver Canucks: It’s huge. They just built a new arena, which was a big deal. They thought for a long time it might not happen, but now it’s done. It’s a big deal because our national team has been successful the last few years, and obviously with the World Championships being held in the Czech Republic, it’s going to be exciting. From 1999 to 2001, I think our team realized that it takes 20 guys to win a game, and that’s the way we played. We have a lot of great players who don’t play in the NHL, too, or only did for a couple of years, but they contributed in a huge way to the national team. Some changes were made after 2002. When your team isn’t successful, that’s what happens. But you know, Josef Augusta was the heart and soul of that team in that previous period. He was an assistant coach for a number of tournaments, and he got two gold medals as a head coach. He was a huge part of what happened. Obviously we’ve got some new people coming in and hopefully they will do well too. We’ll have an experienced team with some young guys coming in too, but it’s tough to give advice about what approach to take. You’ve just got to experience it.