8. 4. 2024 Daniel Ryl
The Silesian semi-final campaign ended successfully, as we took away a hard-fought victory 3:2 after extra time from the ice of Ocelarů, thanks to which we are within reach of progressing to the final! We want to decide on it already in the fifth match on Tuesday, April 9 from 6:30 p.m., which you can watch live on O2TV Sport, or on Radiožurnálu Sport and the website Online.com.
Tickets are on sale now, but they’re going fast
Already a day before the match, it is clear that the packed O2 arena will drive us to another victory. Immediately after Sunday’s game, fans started buying tickets that are already available on free sale. However, there are still hundreds of pieces left for the match!
Without a captain, but with determination!
In the third duel on the ice of the Steelers, we showed great will when we won 3:2 after extra time after Jakub Krejčík’s second goal. In the fourth match, however, the power plays did not work out so well for us and after a good performance by the opponent, we had to suffer a 1:4 defeat. At the end of the match, the captain went to the dressing room Michal Repíkwho received a fine from the disciplinary committee for slashing Patrik Hrehorčák two match suspension.
However, you won’t find any doubts about our team, on the contrary, the players are determined to use the home environment and celebrate progress to the finals. “We just want to finish the streak and win. That’s the hardest step. They don’t want to wrap it up. It’s going to be a fight to the last second, but we’re going to be playing at home, where our fans are going to drive us, so we’re really looking forward to it.” said the striker in an interview after the fourth game Philip the Guy.
History plays into our hands, especially at home
It may come as a surprise, but the current situation is not unknown to us. Exactly the same development of the series, when we managed the first three matches and returned to the fifth match at home with a score of 3:1 on the matches, us met already two years ago. And twice! In the quarter-finals against Liberec and against Český Budějovice a round later, we managed the match in the O2 arena and finally celebrated progressing after five duels.
Over the past twenty years, we have also experienced the same development of the series in 2007 and 2009 against Zlín, when we made both quarterfinals with the fifth match in Prague. So we have a decent success rate at home, away from home we were able to advance in the fifth game in 2006 in Znojmo and a year later in Liberec. However, we did not succeed in the subsequent final series in Pardubice and Slavia, we celebrated the title only on home ice in the sixth duel.
The twenty-year-old semi-final series against the team from Eden remains a black duck. At that time, our team was able to react to the initial defeat with three wins and could consolidate progress at home. Although we won the match with two goals by Roman Šimíček and Petr Ton in the very end, we lost in the end 3:4 after extra time and lost the entire semi-final series as well.
Did you know that…
Attentive fans have noticed that this year’s playoffs are for now driving in red! Our team has played all matches in Spartan red and won the first seven, thus equaling the sixteen-year-old streak from the 2007 championship playoff. The last time we played in the white kit was against Třinec last spring.
