A lot of factors to consider when building Karjala roster

When Europe's top four hockey nations released their roster last week for the Karjala Cup, the first leg of this year's Euro Hockey Tour, there was a lot of head-scratching among observers. With the surplus of bona fide talent playing in Europe right now, some were anticipating an all-star tournament of sorts in Finland that might include the likes of Jaromíř Jágr, Alexander Ovechkin, Henrik Zetterberg and others. But while some locked out NHLers were chosen to represent Finland, Russia, Sweden and the Czech Republic, the teams have mostly been made up of players committed to Europe for the full season.

Tomáš Hertl might get a shot at the World Championship this 

year if NHLers are unavailable. Photo: nhlmockdraft.org

The announcement of a roster without Jágr, David Krejči, Aleš Hemský and Tomáš Vokoun was especially disappointing to hockey fans in Liberec, who were hoping to see an all-star cast assemble this Thursday when the Czech Republic hosts Sweden to open the tournament. In fact, the Czech Republic could have built an entire team based completely on NHLers now playing in the Czech Extraliga and KHL.

"Of course, if Jarda Jágr plays, the fans will come," said Czech national team coach Alois Hadamczik. "But for me it can be rather annoying; if the NHL starts, we're going to the World Championships with only players in Europe."

Indeed, he's probably right. Of course, everyone remembers the last NHL lockout, the one that wiped out the entire 2004-05 season and left virtually all players free to compete in that year's World Championship. The Czech Republic, with an all-star cast that included Jágr and Vokoun, won the gold medal with a 3-0 victory over Canada in the final.

However, fewer people remember the tournament in 1995. That year, when a lockout forced the NHL to begin a 48-game schedule in mid January that finished in early May, no NHL players were free to compete in the World Championship. That year, the Czech Republic, with a roster composed entirely of Extraliga players, finished 4th, losing the bronze medal game to a Canadian team composed of players from the AHL, IHL and European leagues. If the scenario of 1995 repeats itself, which seems like a very good possibility at this point, Hadamczik has to create a team of players in Europe, and he wants to get potential players ready to play during the Euro Hockey Tour.

Balancing the possibilities between NHLers and domestics, his roster for the Karjala Cup includes both: Ondrej Pavelec, Marek Židlický, Ladislav Šmíd, Tomáš Plekanec, and Jiří Tlustý will be there (although Židlický and Plekanec will only play in Liberec), but so will young charges Jakub Krejčík, Jakub Svoboda and Tomáš Hertl.

Under normal circumstances, Hertl would probably be at the U20 tournament, which will run concurrently in Sweden in preparation for this year's World Junior Championship, but since an all-European-based Czech team at the Worlds would almost certainly include Hertl, it's important to get him playing time with the big boys.

Even with a few big names missing, there are still plenty of players to follow at the Karjala Cup, however. Most games will be televised in the Czech Replublic on ČT Sport and live text coverage will be available in English at Eurolivescores.com. From hokej.cz, below is the Czech roster, their lineup for the first game against Sweden (Wednesday at 18:00 CET) and the tournament schedule.

Czech roster for the Karjala Cup (November 7 - 10, Turku, Finland and Liberec):

Goaltenders:

Ondřej Pavelec (Bílí Tygři Liberec), Alexandr Salák (Färjestad, Sweden).

Defencemen:

Marek Židlický (Rytíři Kladno), Ladislav Šmíd (Bílí Tygři Liberec), Petr Čáslava (Cherepovets, KHL), Jakub Nakládal (Spartak Moscow, KHL), Filip Novák (Dynamo Moscow, KHL), Jakub Kindl (HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice), Jakub Krejčík (HC Lev Praha, KHL), Lukáš Galvas (HC Oceláři Třinec).

Forwards:

Tomáš Plekanec, Jiří Tlustý (both Rytíři Kladno), Petr Nedvěd (Bílí Tygři Liberec), Jiří Novotný (HC Lev Praha, KHL), Zbyněk Irgl (Dynamo Minsk, KHL), Michal Vondrka (Slovan Bratislava, KHL), Jakub Petružálek (Khabarovsk, KHL), Petr Koukal (Nizhnekamsk, KHL), Petr Hubáček (Jyväskylä, Finland), Jan Kovář (HC Škoda Plzeň), Jakub Svoboda (HC Kometa Brno), Tomáš Hertl (HC Slavia Praha), Lukáš Pech (HC Energie Karlovy Vary).

General Manager: Slavomír Lener
Head Coach: Alois Hadamczik
Assistant Coach: Josef Paleček
Assistant & Video Coach: Jan Procházka
Team Manager: Jan Černý
Team Doctor: Dr. Zdeněk Ziegelbauer
Physiotherapist: Michal Truc
Equipment Manager: Zdeněk Šmíd
Trainer: Petr Ondráček

Announced lineup (and line combinations) vs Sweden in Liberec:

Salák (Pavelec) - Židlický, Šmíd, Novák, Čáslava, Kindl, Nakládal, Krejčík, Galvas - Nedvěd, Plekanec, Tlustý - Petružálek, Koukal, Vondrka - Irgl, Novotný, Hubáček - Hertl, Kovář, Svoboda (Pech).

2012 Karjala Cup schedule:

Wednesday, November 7:

17:30 Finland - Russia (Turku)
18:00 Czech Republic - Sweden (Liberec)

Friday, November 9:

14:00 Sweden - Russia (Turku)
17:30 Finland - Czech Republic (Turku)

Saturday, November 10:

12:00 Czech Republic - Russia (Turku)
16:00 Finland - Sweden (Turku)

Czech hockey online in English

For the past six weeks, hockey-starved NHL fans have had to depend largely on hockey from Europe to get their fix. While a few games have been on in the United States and the United Kingdom on various ESPN platforms, most have had to search for internet streams with foreign-language broadcasts. These fans should be glad to know that live text commentary will now be available for many games in the Czech Extraliga and KHL.

Left to right: Marek Židlický, Tomáš Kaberle and Tomáš Plekanec
lead Kladno against Brno Tuesday. Josef Poláček, hc-kladno.cz.

All Czech hockey fans are familiar with the site onlajny.cz, which provides online text coverage of every Czech Extraliga game, as well as in lower men's leagues and top junior leagues. In the past couple of years they have also periodically provided English commentary to international events in the Czech Republic, such last last season's U18 World Championship in Brno, Znojmo and Břeclav.

In the past year and a half, I have covered several international events for the site's English version, called eurolivescores.com. Highlights include the 2011 IIHF Inline championship game in Pardubice and the 2012 U18 Women's championship game in Zlín. Typing events from a hockey game as they happen in rapid succession in a coherent manner takes some getting used to, and at first was a bit stressful, but I've gotten used to it.

Tonight, I will cover a professional hockey game in this manner for the first time: Rytíři Kladno vs Kometa Brno. For the third time this season, Kladno will play a home game at O2 Arena in Prague, the largest venue for hockey in the country. Both previous games drew over 15,000 fans and even more are expected this time. The increased interest in watching Kladno play is, of course, due to the NHL lockout and the subsequent arrival of club owner Jaromír Jágr and several other superstars to the team.

In what will surely be a disappointment to all those who have bought tickets, Jágr will not be in the Kladno lineup tonight, sitting out his second straight game with a yet-to-be-specified lower-body injury (though he says it's not the groin, which has given him trouble in the past). However, familiar names such as Marek Židlický, Tomáš Kaberle, Jan Hlaváč and Tomáš Plekanec will be. For Kometa, non-Czechs might know the names Miloslav Hořava and Róbert Petrovický, who both played in the NHL. The game is important for the league standings, as Brno is in 2nd place with 27 points, one ahead of Kladno.

Zdeno Chára and Alexander Radulov face

each other in KHL action on Thursday.
Photo: Jan Rachota, levpraha.cz.

Tuesday's game is actually the second that Eurolivecores has done in the Extraliga; on Sunday, Bill Meltzer of hockeybuzz.com provided commentary for Liberec-Kladno.

Coming up on Thursday, I return to O2 Arena to begin KHL online coverage as Lev Praha hosts CSKA Moscow, a matchup that will feature Zdeno Chára against Pavel Datsyuk. It will be a rematch of last Thursday's meeting in Moscow, where Datsyuk's CSKA club triumped 3-0. As some readers might know, I write for Lev's English website, so I'll try my best not to be a homer. In addition to all Lev home games that I'll be on location for, myself and a team of other commentators will provide commentary of other select KHL games, either from the arena or remotely.

Tuesday's Kladno-Brno matchup begins at 18:15 CET, 12:15 ET. Thursday's Lev-CSKA battle begins at 19:00 CET, 1pm ET.

Who will win the Golden Stick?

The Golden Hockey Stick (or Zlatá hokejka) is an annual award presented to the Czech hockey player who had the best season. The player can play anywhere in the world, and contributions to both his club team and the Czech national team can be taken into account. The 2011 winner will be announced on Saturday night at a special ceremony at the Grand Hotel Pupp in Karlovy Vary, beginning at 21:00 Central European Time. It will be televised on ČT1 and webcast at ceskatelevize.cz. More information can be found at zlatahokejka2011.cz.

Following last month's World Championships, a group of panelists voted on who they felt were the ten best Czech hockey players over the past season. Each panelist ranked them one to ten, with the top-ranked player getting 10 points, and the tenth-ranked player getting 1 point. The panel included all 14 Extraliga head coaches, plus coaches from the Czech national men's senior and U20 teams, retired Czech hockey players, and members of the media.

Once the top ten finalists were determined, a second round of voting was conducted, where the panel again ranked the ten remaining players. The result of that second-round vote will be revealed on Saturday.

Here are the ten finalists, listed alphabetically:

ČERVENKA, ROMAN	Avangard Omsk (KHL)
ELIÁŠ, PATRIK	New Jersey Devils (NHL)
HAVLÁT, MARTIN	Minnesota Wild (NHL)
JÁGR, JAROMÍR	Avangard Omsk (KHL)
KREJČÍ, DAVID	Boston Bruins (NHL)
PAVELEC, ONDŘEJ	Atlanta Thrashers (NHL)
PLEKANEC, TOMÁŠ	Montreal Canadiens (NHL)
STRAKA, MARTIN	HC Plzeň 1929
VOKOUN, TOMÁŠ	Florida Panthers (NHL)
ŽIDLICKÝ, MAREK	Minnesota Wild (NHL)

Of the ten finalists, seven played in the NHL, while two played in the KHL and one, Martin Straka, played at home in the Czech Extraliga. Straka, who has never won the award, would be a sentimental pick, as held the titles of President, General Manager, and team captain and had to deal with a ton of front-office headaches and still finished second in league scoring. He would be the first domestic player to win the award since Jiří Dopita in 2001.

The two KHL players, Roman Červenka and Jaromír Jágr, were linemates in Omsk. Jágr, who with nine Golden Sticks has won the award more than any other player in history, surely made his way up the voting with his performance in the World Championship, where he registered 9 points in nine games.

Jágr is one of three finalists who have won the award before. The others are the past two winners: Tomáš Vokoun and Patrik Eliáš. Like Jágr, Eliáš's presence in the Top Ten is likely aided by his World Championship performance, where he also recorded 9 points in nine games. Vokoun, on the other, hand, won the award last season based on his performance at the Worlds, but his refusal to play this season will likely prevent him from repeating. The other goaltender on the list, Ondřej Pavelec, was spectacular in goal in the Worlds, but may not have had enough of a spectacular regular season to top the voting.

Eliáš, along with Martin Havlát and David Krejčí, would seem to be the three favourites to win. The trio finished tied with 62 points to lead all Czech players in the NHL. While Eliáš and Havlát starred in the World Championship, Krejčí won the Stanley Cup as a member of the Boston Bruins and led all playoff scorers with 23 points in 25 games.

In total, 58 players received votes:

11. Tomáš Vlasák (Plzeň) 212 points, 12. Dominik Hašek (Spartak Moscow, KHL) 181, 13. Karel Rachůnek (Yaroslavl, KHL) 178, 14. Martin Růžička (Třinec) 170, 15. Milan Hejduk (Colorado, NHL), 129, 16. Jakub Štěpánek (St. Petersburg, KHL) 124, 17. Zbyněk Michálek (Pittsburgh, NHL) 108, 18. Tomáš Rolinek (Magnitogorsk, KHL) 83, 19. Milan Michálek (Ottawa, NHL) 76, 20. Tomáš Kaberle (Boston, NHL) 74, 21. Miroslav Blaťák (Ufa, KHL), 45, 22. Jakub Voráček (Columbus, NHL) 42, 23. Petr Sýkora (Davos, Switzerland) 36, 24. - 25. Michal Neuvirth (Washington, NHL) and Alexandr Salák (Färjestad, Sweden) 29, 26. Lukáš Krajíček (Třinec) 26, 27. Aleš Hemský (Edmonton, NHL) 24, 28. Petr Nedvěd (Liberec) 18, 29. Michael Frolík (Chicago, NHL) 16, 30. - 31. Jakub Kovář (České Budějovice) and Roman Málek (Vítkovice) 15, 32. Jiří Burger (Vítkovice) 14, 33. Radim Vrbata (Phoenix, NHL) 12, 34. Lukáš Kašpar (Astana, KHL) 11, 35. - 36. Roman Hamrlík (Montréal, NHL) and Jan Marek (Atlant/Yaroslavl, KHL) 10, 37. Milan Gulaš (České Budějovice) 9, 38. - 40. Petr Čajánek (St. Petersburg, KHL), Petr Hubáček (Kometa Brno) and Jiří Hudler (Detroit, NHL) 8, 41. Josef Vašíček (Yaroslavl, KHL) 7, 42. - 43. Miroslav Kopřiva (Slavia Praha) and František Ptáček (České Budějovice) 6, 44. - 45. Tomáš Duba (Zlín/Třinec) and Marek Malík (Vítkovice) 5, 46. - 48. Petr Leška (Zlín), Radek Martínek (New York Islanders, NHL) and Petr Průcha (St. Petersburg, KHL) 4, 49. - 50. Viktor Hübl (Litvínov) and Viktor Ujčík (Vítkovice) 3, 51. - 54. Jaroslav Bednář (Davos, Switzerland), Radek Bonk (Třinec), Petr Čáslava (CSKA Moscow, KHL) and Martin Růžička (Pardubice) 2, 55. - 58. Radek Duda (Chomutov/Plzeň), Jan Kovář (Plzeň), František Lukeš (Litvínov) and Ondřej Němec (Cherepovets) 1.

First awarded in 1969, the Golden Stick began essentially as an MVP award for the Czechoslovak First League, and continued to be until the administrative breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993. At that time, due to the fact that most of the best Czech hockey players were now playing abroad, the award was changed to its present format, where all Czechs are eligible for the award, regardless of where in the world they play.

Past Winners:

1969 - Jan Suchý (D), HC Dukla Jihlava
1970 - Jan Suchý (D), HC Dukla Jihlava
1971 - František Pospíšil (D), Poldi Kladno
1972 - František Pospíšil (D), Poldi Kladno
1973 - Vladimír Martinec (RW), HC Pardubice
1974 - Jiří Holeček (G), HC Sparta Praha
1975 - Vladimír Martinec (RW), HC Pardubice
1976 - Vladimír Martinec (RW), HC Pardubice
1977 - Milan Nový (C), Poldi SONP Kladno
1978 - Ivan Hlinka (C), CHZ Litvínov
1979 - Vladimír Martinec (RW), HC Dukla Jihlava
1980 - Peter Šťastný (C), HC Slovan Bratislava
1981 - Milan Nový (C), Poldi SONP Kladno
1982 - Milan Nový (C), Poldi SONP Kladno
1983 - Vincent Lukáč (RW), VSŽ Košice
1984 - Igor Liba (LW), HC Dukla Jihlava
1985 - Jiří Králík (G), HC Gottwaldov
1986 - Vladimír Růžička (C), CHZ Litvínov
1987 - Dominik Hašek (G), Tesla Pardubice
1988 - Vladimír Růžička (C), Dukla Trenčín
1989 - Dominik Hašek (G), Tesla Pardubice
1990 - Dominik Hašek (G), Tesla Pardubice
1991 - Bedřich Ščerban (D), HC Dukla Jihlava
1992 - Róbert Švehla (D), HC Dukla Trenčín
1993 - Miloš Holaň (D), TJ Vítkovice
1994 - Roman Turek (G), HC České Budějovice
1995 - Jaromír Jágr (RW), Poldi Kladno/Bolzano/Schalker Haïe/Pittsburgh Penguins
1996 - Jaromír Jágr (RW), Pittsburgh Penguins
1997 - Dominik Hašek (G), Buffalo Sabres
1998 - Dominik Hašek (G), Buffalo Sabres
1999 - Jaromír Jágr (RW), Pittsburgh Penguins
2000 - Jaromír Jágr (RW), Pittsburgh Penguins
2001 - Jiří Dopita (C), HC Vsetín
2002 - Jaromír Jágr (RW), Washington Capitals
2003 - Milan Hejduk (RW), Colorado Avalanche
2004 - Robert Lang (C), Washington Capitals/Detroit Red Wings
2005 - Jaromír Jágr (RW), HC Rabat Kladno/Avangard Omsk
2006 - Jaromír Jágr (RW), New York Rangers
2007 - Jaromír Jágr (RW), New York Rangers
2008 - Jaromír Jágr (RW), New York Rangers
2009 - Patrik Eliáš (LW), New Jersey Devils
2010 - Tomáš Vokoun (G), Florida Panthers

Most wins:

9 - Jaromír Jágr
5 - Dominik Hašek
4 - Vladimír Martinec
3 - Milan Nový

2 - Jan Suchý

2 - František Pospíšil

2 - Vladimír Růžička