The 26-year-old Koch, who has 33 starts so far and ten three-goal points and seven assists in the extraleague season, was guilty of 36 runs on the ice for the Energie on Sunday. In the last 47′, with the score 2:0 for Ostrava, he hit Juusola hard near the blue line.
The Finn struggled to get off the ice, but managed to reach the Karlovy Vary switchboard on his own. Koch received a five-minute penalty and the rest of the game for assault. In the end, Vítkovic brought home a 3:1 victory from West Bohemia and continues to keep pace with leaders Pardubice, to whom he is only two points behind.
“It was an intervention in which he was not interested in the puck, only in the opponent who pushed the puck around him and hit him on the head with his shoulder. For this reason we also reclassified the original one-hit assault penalty in the head and neck area. It’s hockey, I assume, the body can play, but it doesn’t have to play in the head,” Ujčík stressed.
Koch was aggravated by the fact that he was disciplined for the third time since mid-March last year. “And for the third time in less than a year, it was the same offense – again it’s a blow to the head and neck area. For me, it was surgery for three games, but the relapse was reflected there That’s why we added another match so that the player would understand that something was probably wrong” Ujčík said.
