How Priorities Change with Age: A Hockey Player’s Perspective on Team Success and Longevity in the Sport

“It is clear that priorities change with age. I’m not playing for contracts, for some future at club level. Team success is number 1 for me. I know the cabin has to stick together to make the atmosphere as good as possible. And if there is, it will show itself in the more difficult moments that come in the tournaments,” he says.

It is obvious how he is maturing as a person and as a game. He used to be a lightning rod for angry fans who personified hockey failures in him, but it was last year’s championship that showed what hockey smarts he still has.

“When you’re younger, you see everything completely differently. I won the world championship at the age of 24 (2010) and then you think it will be like this obrok. When experience shows you that it’s all different. Man moves. There are many examples that one can play at an older age, it just depends on what one sacrifices and gives. I am very happy in Switzerland. I feel that I play in a quality league, I have good teammates and good people who do not let me sleep in hockey. And when you catch up with younger teammates, it’s nice.”

It is his engagement in Switzerland, where he is doing well and his family is also happy, that is behind his hockey longevity and awakening. He remains in Rapperswill for the next season as well and believes that the team can once again move a little further in terms of results. This year, he crashed in the quarter-finals in Zug, after which coach Jalonen called him and “ordered” a few weeks off before calling him up for the national team.

He stayed in Switzerland because his son goes to school here, and only last week did Červenka come to the Czech Republic by himself. It’s a logical solution, because it’s not worth testing it in all the preliminary matches, after all, the medal matches at the World Cup will come in a month anyway.

“Last year, the period in the kindergarten was not very long, it was just enough. So we agreed similarly. Hopefully I’ll be ready this year as well, and now I just need to get that match pace again,” says Červenka. And even from those words, it’s clear that he didn’t hesitate to participate in the championship.

Last year, David Krejčí was his faithful partner in the preparation and at the tournament itself, but after a year’s engagement in Olomouc, he is now loyally serving Boston again. “I miss. We enjoyed last year’s championship, but I wish Boston to win the Stanley Cup,” Červenka is clear. “But now we have the World Cup process ahead of us to form a team. it’s about getting it out of that booth and onto the ice, too. That’s the most important thing.”

The following two weeks in Brno, where the national team is currently training, will also serve for this purpose. In this one, they will play two friendly matches against Austria (on Thursday in Vienna and on Saturday in Brno), in the next, the Czech Hockey Games are on the program as a warm-up before the championship. Červenka currently has a position in the first attack alongside Špaček and Smejkal.