What did the preparatory camp show you?
This was the first big event, so far I was only at two-day mini camps. Now I was with the national team for the first time for a long time and more girls came from abroad. I must say that I enjoyed camping a lot. We have already started practicing game situations. It is valuable for me to see girls, because one sees their level and can compare how it is. He knows his shortcomings and advantages.
I assume that your weakness will not be skating …
It depends on what. Starting straight fast is one thing, but any movement in a small space, and with a stick on the stick and an opponent on the back, is another. I’m used to fast skating forward, but it doesn’t occur that much in hockey, at most from ten to fifteen percent. Skating in a small space is a nut for me. When you are in the corner of the rink or in a duel, the movement is different.
What shortcomings do you register?
The big chapter in itself is for me working with a hockey stick. This is practically completely new to me. When skating in a small space, I can at least start from the strength of my lower limbs, I can handle my legs. But in working with a hockey stick, I start from scratch. Although I often played outside with my brother and cousins and with the hockey stick as a child, I still stinked somewhere, but it doesn’t occur to me that I could benefit from it now and follow up on something. In this, every training is very valuable for me and I have to focus a lot on it. I think it will be a shortcoming, but I am also making some progress.
Before the camp, you said that you would try to catch up with the hockey train that passed you as a speed skater. Managed?
It’s more like running on a longer track. You can’t catch up in a week. But every camp or every moment with girls on the ice helps me catch up. I definitely did a lot of work.
So how close did your dream to participating in the next Olympics come as a hockey player?
The invitation to any national team meeting is already favorable as far as this goal is concerned. Of course, I was very happy for that. Just because of the possibility of comparison with such a level. But if I ignore the situation with the covid, which I won’t affect, a lot of things would have to come together to make it work. It is a collective sport where everything is possible, various injuries can come. I expect to continue to improve because I am working on it as best I can. And if everything develops favorably, it is not unrealistic. But it is still quite far away and it depends on the circumstances. We’ll see what the constellation of stars will be like.
Karolína Erbanová (right) at the hockey team camp.
repro Hockey stick TV
Perhaps better to estimate the reality of participation in the World Cup, which is to be in May.
The same is true as for the Olympics, even though the World Cup is at an earlier date. Various circumstances still come into play. I was not originally supposed to go to the Monastery, I got there as a substitute. It is important to be prepared in team sports, especially in this time of life, if the invitation comes, and to keep up, which I can do.
Is the vision of a hockey career a driving force for you now, which motivates you to train and drives you on?
When I focus on a goal, I have a relatively strong will. I’ve tried skating before. I must say that although it is a different sport, the experience of speed skating helps me a lot. Once a person achieves something and walks that path, he knows what steps to take to move and get somewhere. On the other hand, I don’t want to fully immerse myself in it, put pressure on myself and experience it all in convulsions. For me, it is quite a great success and a dream come true that I was able to participate in camps and be with our best players and not be completely useless there, so to speak. On the other hand, the will is great and my goals are always high. I guess it wouldn’t completely satisfy me yet. I’d like to see where it’ll let me go.
How often do you hear the question about the next Olympics now?
It is true that after the camp in Klášterec it was a little shouted. I participated in the previous smaller camps more secretly. But I can quite walk in this. It’s not the order of the day. Let’s say there is a possibility and it is not completely closed. Which was also possible if I saw for myself that I didn’t have it. But I don’t think that’s giving up on my own. So let’s see where it leads.
By the way, we are talking together for a day exactly three years after winning the Olympic bronze medal …
Is it already eighteenth? I didn’t even realize it was an anniversary. (Laughs)
Are memories coming to life?
They come to life, but I don’t have it associated with the date. I always remember something. Most often, when I see a photo or athletes who were there with me and celebrated the medal. One is retrospectively aware of life in the Olympic Village, one remembers the experiences that are still coming to pass, because I have not fully explored them before, only now do you put them into context.
What do you remember the most?
I remember very fondly my Dutch coach, under whom I trained for the last two years and now works in Japan. I like to remember a few days after winning the medal, which we enjoyed with the rest. It was fine. When you already have a medal, everything will fall out of you. These were beautiful moments that I like to remember.
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Karolina Erbanova poses with a bronze medal.
WWTP / Jan Malý
Let’s go back to the present. You live in Vrchlabí, which is due to the high incidence of coronavirus in the world cut off area. How do you do it?
It’s a strange feeling. Not that I go anywhere so often. Unlike the way I used to fly around the world, I’m quite a bit of a fellow now. As the crow flies, it’s about four hundred meters to the border with the Semily district, so it’s a weird feeling … He finally adapts to everything, it just takes too long.
How did the pandemic affect you at work?
It’s quite limited. I train youth skating in Vrchlabí, but she can’t do ice skating. So I help younger boys from skating with skating training as much as possible, but it’s only closed to them. Invitations to representative camps helped me a lot to bridge a certain period. It was the only way for me to get on the ice, with more people and in gear. Otherwise, I try to fight like everyone else. Work matters, as well as sports, are very limited. It’s a mentally stressful time for everyone, but let’s hope we get out of it soon.
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