The Prague Post
December 2nd, 2008
Endowment Fund     Business Listings ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    Subscriptions

Home » Archives » Sports

Hail, Spartans

Club survives scare from Pardubice to win second consecutive championship

By František Bouc
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
April 18th, 2007 issue

CTK
Sparta Praha forward Ondřej Kratěna scored two goals in his team's series-clinching victory over HC Moeller Pardubice April 14. Sparta had lost two straight games.
With only three minutes remaining in the sixth game of the Extraliga hockey championship between Sparta Praha and HC Moeller Pardubice April 14, Pardubice’s forward Petr Sýkora got hold of the puck on the right wing and broke straight toward Sparta goalie Tomáš Duba. Waiting to shoot until he was almost on top of Duba, Sýkora unleashed a vicious slap shot, only to have the shot glance harmlessly off one of Duba’s pads.
“It was the sort of game that, if there were a broom in the goal rather than the goalie, we would have hit the broom rather than scoring a goal,” said a frustrated Sýkora, the Extraliga’s leading scorer this season.
At the time of Sýkora’s shot, Sparta was leading the game, 2–0, and also leading the best-of-seven series, 3–2. Only after Sýkora’s failed bid did Sparta forward Ondřej Kratěna, who scored the game’s two goals, start believing that Sparta was finally going to end the series and celebrate a second consecutive league championship.
“I looked at the clock and saw there were more than two minutes remaining,” Kratěna said, with a gold medal hanging round his neck. “Then I realized Pardubice was unlikely to make another comeback.”
Comeback kids
Indeed, this year’s Extraliga finals were all about comebacks. The first, and perhaps most important, occurred in the first game of the series: Pardubice, playing at home, won the first period, 2–0, but Sparta rallied in the final two periods, winning the game 5–4.
“That first game had a crucial impact on future developments in the finals,” said Pardubice head coach Miloš Říha. “Sparta outsmarted us in the opening game and then took the better of us in the series.”
Buoyed by the win, Sparta scored two more quick victories, 5–3 in Pardubice and 7–3 in Prague, soon finding itself staked to a dominating 3–0 lead in the series.
While Sparta looked set to finish Pardubice’s run in the series’ fourth game, in Prague, Pardubice then made a comeback of its own, winning two straight games: 5–2 in Prague and 5–1 in Pardubice.
Pardubice’s second win was more a point of pride than anything else, said Libor Pivko, a forward on the team.
“We didn’t want to let Sparta celebrate the title in our home arena,” he said.
Pardubice’s two wins made Sparta nervous. Never in Extraliga history has a team won a series after losing the first three games, and Sparta certainly didn’t want to be the first to let that happen.
“We did not want to become the first team to lose the finals after being up 3–0, and neither did we want to travel to Pardubice for a possible decisive game,” Sparta’s Kratěna said.
In its comeback bid, Pardubice could have been inspired by recent history: In its quarterfinal series against Znojmo in early March, the team clinched an early 3–0 lead in the series, only to lose three straight to an underdog Znojmo team. Pardubice had to pull out a win in a decisive seventh game to advance further into the playoffs.
“We certainly had [Znojmo’s] comeback on our minds when facing a similar situation against Sparta,” Říha said.
Kratěna’s determination not to go back to Pardubice was most visible on the ice in Game 6: He scored the game’s first goal in the fourth minute, and then added another goal in the 22nd minute.
“It wasn’t important for me to score the goals,” he said. It was far more important to know “that the game was going our way after all.”
A new dynasty?
Sparta is only the second club in Extraliga history to win consecutive titles. In the late 1990s and early part of this decade, HC Vsetín won five Extraliga titles in six years.
Kratěna was a member of that Vsetín dynasty before he was transferred to Sparta in 1999. He then helped Sparta notch an Extraliga victory in 2000. Now, after adding two other championships to his belt at Sparta, Kratěna admitted the Prague squad has a good chance of growing into another Czech hockey dynasty.
“It wasn’t an accident that we defended the Extraliga,” he said. “The playoffs showed our strength.”
Sparta’s triumph over Pardubice earned the organization its eighth Czech championship title, and its fourth since 1998, when Anschutz Properties — the U.S. owners of the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings — bought a 30 percent stake in the club.
The deal brought a huge infusion of cash to the team, raising its capital to more than 100 million Kč ($4.8 million). Suddenly, Sparta was the Extraliga’s wealthiest team — on paper. It also became the first Czech club backed by a majority share of foreign capital.
“Money is very important for us, as it is for any other club. But money itself doesn’t win anything,” said Sparta General Manager Petr Bříza.

František Bouc can be reached at fbouc@praguepost.com


Other articles in Sports (18/04/2007):

Browse the Current Issue

If you enjoyed this article, why don't you subscribe to the print version!
We accept secure online transactions provided by PayPal and Moneybookers

Be the first to add a comment!


Full Name: *
City: *
E-mail: **
This comment can be published in the print version of The Prague Post
Enter the text on the right:
 visual captcha
Comment: *
* Required field. In order to be approved for display, comments must have a first and last name and a city.
** E-mails are required and will only be used for internal purposes.

Most visited in Business Listings

Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.