today 00:00
|
This season, Bratislava hockey fans will probably go to the Ondrej Nepel Ice Stadium from senior teams to the extra-league Slovan and its premier league team Modrá Krídla.
In the supranational ICE Hockey League (ICE HL), iClinic Bratislava Capitals, after last week’s tragic deaths of forward Boris Sádecký and vice president and general manager Dušan Pašek Jr., decided to ask the competition management to end the season early.
The management of ICE HL has not yet decided on the end of the Bratislava team this season
The management of the league will deal with the request of the Bratislava team in the coming days. The players and the implementation team learned about the premature end of the season from the club’s management on Monday evening at a meeting at their home stand. “Everyone came to the meeting. David Bondra was just missing, who went to the USA to get a green card, but will return in a few days. ” team captain Dávid Buc told our daily, which thus refuted the speculation that the overseas players had already left Bratislava for the ocean during the weekend.
„The management has told us that it will be better for everyone if we end the current season. The tragedies that have taken place are an extreme psychological burden, and each of us is aware of this. It would not be easy to wear a Capitals jersey and remember Boris or Dušan. The owner saw us in the overhaul against Villach last week that it was not us, “ defender Martin Chovan told us after the match.
OTHER TEAMS ALSO OFFERED HELP
The death of two team members was a severe blow to both the club and the players. Nevertheless, some wanted to continue the season. “Even after the crash of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl aircraft in 2011, the club subsequently decided to skip the rest of the KHL season. He did so despite the fact that his competitors offered him players. Our club also received offers that hockey players from other teams could help them, but the management decided this way. Players should probably continue to be aware of these things. It will be better if they go elsewhere and forget about it. They need to draw new energy.
However, the club declared to us that if we ever wanted to return, our doors were open. We wanted to stay and play, but no one would be able to guarantee how we would do in the next matches. We don’t know if it would help us or not. The psychologist’s arrival in the cabin was also at stake, but in the end the decision was made not to finish the season. I believe that it will not have a bad effect on any member of the staff. “ told us Captain Capitals, who evaluates the work in ICE HL positively.
„We experienced a quality league, we could compare with quality players. I think that all our hockey players who get into new jobs will benefit their teams. The club will now gain new strength and I believe that it will return even stronger and prosper. “
THERE IS ALSO INTERESTED IN EVERYONE
Bratislava Capitals
Source: iclinic-capitals.sk
–
The club offered some players the opportunity to move to other teams that have the same sponsor as Capitals, such as Košice or Klagenfurt. “Ninety percent of us know they are interested in us. We are in a difficult time when there are not many hockey players on the market. This situation will help several clubs and gain quality reinforcements. ” said Buc.
„Should any of us fail to do so, they have a promise from the owner that they will receive everything as agreed on paper until the end of the contract. I have no reason not to believe it, because the club worked professionally and we were properly taken care of. “ Chovan added.
There is interest in the market for practically all Slovak players of the club. Goalkeeper Samuel Baroš, defenders Martin Chovan, Samuel Fereta, Vojtech Zeleňák, or attackers Dávid Bondra, Denis Hudec, Dávid Buc should not have a problem finding a new place of work. Young men Roman Faith or Michal Mrázik also have plenty of offers. Several of the mentioned hockey players are Slovak representatives.
“I have received a few offers in previous days. I still have to think about them, and then I will decide. ” attacker David Buc told us. Defender Martin Chovan still had no idea how he would handle the rest of the season. He has not yet addressed the new position. It is questionable where coach Peter Drasaitl will go.
KOŠICE WILL CONSIDER REINFORCEMENTS
We were interested in whether they were interested in any of them in the Košice club, which was mentioned by the Capitals management as one of the alternatives. “We received this information on Monday evening and we are just dealing with it. It is still very fresh and we have to discuss various alternatives with the coaches. We also need to find out which players would be eligible, or whether some have already nodded to an offer to another club.
Some are on vacation and cannot be reached. We need to consider the whole situation and approach it sensitively, as this would be an intervention on the team. I think we could be clearer in this direction on Thursday, “ HC Sport manager Gabriel Spilar told Šport.
THEY ARE NOT DEBTED OR PAID
In recent days, information has spread on social networks that there may be debts to players or other entities behind the premature end of the season. “All receivables from players should be paid, the club cared. We’ve never had any outages, “ said Capitals sports manager Rostislav Dočekal for Sport.
Bratislava Capitals does not have any debts either to the operator of the Ondrej Nepel Ice Stadium, which is the Administration of Physical Education and Recreation Facilities of the Capital City of the Slovak Republic (STaRZ).
“I communicated with the club management. I consider it important that man and his death be paramount and questions concerning the operation of the stadium in connection with the performance of the Bratislava Capitals are secondary. We will wait for the opinion of the governing body of ICE HL and then we will deal with the situation. Despite the difficult pandemic times, we do not record any Capitals invoices for renting premises overdue, ” STaRZ director Ladislav Križan told us.
HISTORY OF BRATISLAVA CAPITALS
The Bratislava Capitals club has been active on the hockey scene for the third season. However, under the names HC Petržalka and HC Bratislava, he has appeared in lower Slovak competitions since 2014/15. He first performed in the Slovak 1st league, which he mastered in the 2019/20 season due to the quality of the staff. The coronavirus pandemic ended the year prematurely, but already in February 2020, the Slovak Ice Hockey Association announced that it had allowed the people of Bratislava to join the international, then still EBEL league.
After meeting all the conditions, the Bratislava club presented itself in the 2020/21 season in a competition that has since changed its name to the ICE Hockey League. In the basic part, the Capitals took 7th place and in the superstructure they made it to the playoffs during their premiere. In it, they lost to the later vice-champion Bolzano 1: 4 in the quarterfinals.
In the current year, they played 14 matches, in which they collected 20 points and they owned the current 10th place out of fourteen participants in the competition.
–
SPORTS COMMENT: Logical verdict
The hockey players of iClinic Bratislava Capitals entered the multinational ICE Hockey League last season in a solid seventh place. Richer in the experience of the premiere year, they dared to at least repeat the participation in the quarterfinals of the playoffs in the current one. In the increased competition of teams from Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Italy, they also adapted the composition of the staff.
The vice-president and general director of the club Dušan Pašek Jr. managed to catch the team of several interesting names, led by Nikolai Zerdev, Marco-Olivier Roy, or David Bondre. The team led by coach Petr Draisaitl showed at the beginning of the year that they could think of positions in the top half of the table.
He won three times in the first four duels, but then the coronavirus slowed him down. Several hockey players developed COVID-19 and were unable to continue with similar results when they returned to Capitals. It wasn’t until the end of October that they seemed to be gaining strength again. In three days, they defeated both finalists of the past season – Bolzano in Italy and Klagenfurt in Austria.
Subsequently, however, the events took an unexpected and tragic turn. The people of Bratislava did not add any more triumph. After the collapse in Dornbirn, they lost striker Boris Sádecký, who was voluntarily followed by Dušan Pašek Jr. The death of a young hockey player, even a key official, paralyzed the team and started thinking about its future functioning.
The management of the club finally came up with a solution not to finish the current season. Although some members of the cadre wanted to roll on the ice again in the jersey of the Bratislava club, they finally accepted a logical verdict. Already a 0: 5 loss to Villach at the moments when Sádecký was fighting for his life in the hospital, she indicated that in a given mental state, it is not important to enter the competition duels.
In addition, under the influence of tragic events, the capitals asked the league to postpone several matches and compared with competition fell into a time lag. If we add to this the problems with a narrow staff and a challenging mental situation, it is right that they chose not to participate in the rest of the year. Club representatives need time to process difficult moments and gain distance in order to properly evaluate their next steps.
Author: TOMÁŠ LENGYEL
–
–
