Pardubice & Plzeň advance to semis with dramatic game 7 wins

A pair of dramatic seventh games this week rounded out the final four of the Czech Extraliga playoffs. On Tuesday night, Pardubice beat Víktovice in overtime and on Wednesday, Plzeň scored late in the third period to beat Zlín.


Pardubice 5 - 4 Vítkovice (overtime)
(Pardubice wins series 4-3)

Daniel Rákos wins it in overtime. Photo: Jan Jedlička, hcpce.cz.

The first 50 minutes of the game in Pardubice offered a fair amount of excitement for the fans of the two teams; three times the visitors from Ostrava took the lead and twice, once each in the first and second, the home team tied it. As the third period reached its midpoint, Roman Szturc's unassisted goal at 6:56 of the second period was the difference in the 3-2 hockey game, and a tone of nervousness was coming over the Pardubice fans. They were getting lots of chances, but Vítkovice goaltender Roman Málek was showing no chinks in his armour and they were slowly running out of time.

Then Petr Pohl was sent of for slashing, and the crowd became energized. Pardubice saw its chance, and capitalized, when Radovan Somík finished off a pretty passing play with 8:30 on the clock. The game was tied, but the drama was just starting.

Just 2:23 later, veteran Jiří Burger hushed the crowd when he deflected a shot from the point into the net. It was his second goal of the game, and his team's fourth go-ahead goal. Then Jan Kolář went off for slashing with 5:36 left.

By the time the minor penalty was killed off, there was only three and a half minutes left. With two minutes to go, goaltender Martin Růžička was lifted for a sixth attacker and Pardubice continued to get chances. Finally, with just 31 seconds on the clock, Martin Bartak fired home the tying goal, his second goal and third point of the game.

According to Extraliga rules, a seventh game that goes to overtime is not limited to ten minutes. However, in this game, not even one minute was needed. The intermission did not stop the scoring barrage, as Daniel Rákos fired a long shot that went over the shoulder of Málek at the 55-second mark to end the game and the series, send the Víktovice players and fans into sudden shock, and Pardubice players and fans into utter euphoria.


Plzeň 4 - 2 Zlín
(Plzeň wins series 4-3)

Celebrating the series-winning goal.
Photo: Milan Podpera, hcplzen.cz.

The next day, in Plzeň, there was more drama for fans of Czech hockey. Again, it was a game that saw the visitors taking the lead and the home team tying it. Zlín led 1-0 after one period and led 2-1 late in the second when defenceman Jiří Hanzlík fired a shot from the point to even the score after 40 minutes.

Most of the third period was played in the end of Luboš Horčička, who was by far the busier of the two goaltenders on the night, but the Zlín keeper made several saves to keep his team's chances alive. In the game, Plzeň fired 52 shots at Horčička, while Adam Svoboda in the Plzeň goal faced 32, plus one shot that didn't count that almost cost his team the series.

With less than five minutes left, it looked like the visitors had pulled ahead. From behind the net, Zlín's Petr Leška received a pass in front and beat Svoboda with a quick shot. However, in the battle behind the net for the puck, the back of the net had come up and the referee quickly stopped play, blowing his whistle before the puck went into the net, which was back in position by the time it went in. The Zlín players on the ice pleaded for a video review, but it was not a reviewable play, as the whistle had gone before the puck entered the net.

Given a second win, Plzeň scored the series winner shortly afterward. With just over two minutes to play, Hanzlík fed a pass to Nick Johnson in the slot, and the American made no mistake, firing a perfect shot off the post and in, and causing the arena to erupt.

Radek Duda added an empty-net goal, his second tally of the game, to put it away.


As the highest seed remaining, Plzeň now plays Kometa Brno in the semifinals. Eighth-place Kometa pulled off a huge quarterfinal upset, eliminating the regular-season winning Sparta Praha in six games. The series begins on Monday. On Saturday, Pardubice hosts Bílí Tygři Liberec to start the other semifinal series.

From hokej.cz, here is the semifinal schedule. Home teams are listed first and all times are Central European. All games will be televised by ČT4 and streamed live and on-demand on its website. All games are also available live internationally at tv.hokej.cz.

Semifinal schedule
HC Plzeň 1929 - HC Kometa Brno
Mon, 26.03.2012	HC Plzeň 1929	HC Kometa Brno	19:10
Tue, 27.03.2012	HC Plzeň 1929	HC Kometa Brno	17:40
Fri, 30.03.2012	HC Kometa Brno	HC Plzeň 1929	18:10
Sat, 31.03.2012	HC Kometa Brno	HC Plzeň 1929	18:10
*Mon, 02.04.2012	HC Plzeň 1929	HC Kometa Brno	18:10
*Wed, 04.04.2012	HC Kometa Brno	HC Plzeň 1929	17:40
*Fri, 06.04.2012	HC Plzeň 1929	HC Kometa Brno	18:10
HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice - Bílí Tygři Liberec
Sat, 24.03.2012	HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice	Bílí Tygři Liberec	18:10
Sun, 25.03.2012	HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice	Bílí Tygři Liberec	18:10
Wed, 28.03.2012	Bílí Tygři Liberec	HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice	17:40
Thu, 29.03.2012	Bílí Tygři Liberec	HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice	18:10
*Sun, 01.04.2012	HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice	Bílí Tygři Liberec	17:10
*Tue, 03.04.2012	Bílí Tygři Liberec	HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice	17:40
*Thu, 05.04.2012	HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice	Bílí Tygři Liberec	18:10

* Game to be played if necessary.

An eventful month for Duda

He makes news often enough, both on and off the ice, that the Czechs have an expression for him: "Radek Duda, hokej není nuda" (Radek Duda, hockey isn't boring). The month of January was anything but nuda for the Plzeň 1929 right winger.

Duda had plenty to celebrate on the ice in
January. Photo: Milan Podpera, hcplzen.cz.

The month of December went pretty well for him, scoring 11 points in seven games to climb among the leading scorers in the Czech Extraliga. Then, after being held pointless in Plzeň's first game in January, a 5-2 win over Sparta on January 3, he recorded 16 points in the next eight games, with his best game being an awesome five-point performance in a 10-4 win over Liberec on January 15. His two goals and three assists that night thrust him past Petr Nedvěd, who had two points for Liberec in the same game, into the league-scoring lead. Late in the month, the see-saw battle between the two continued, as Nedvěd picked up five points in two games to re-take the lead.

His exploits earned him a nomination for January Player of the Month from Eurohockey.com. Fan voting on Facebook is still open. The field of eight nominees from around Europe also includes Sparta Praha's Petr Tenkrat. (Click here to vote.)

But Duda's on-ice exploits are only part of the reason he's in the news. At the tail end of the month, a couple of incidents from the past have come to the forefront of Duda's life.

A year ago, he became the centre of a huge controversy when he was named as a suspect in a hit-and-run incident in Karlovy Vary. According to numerous reports, Duda nearly hit a pedestrian with his car in a crosswalk and then got out of his car and attacked the man. Facing up to three years in prison, on Monday, January 31, Duda was given a three-month suspended sentence and one year's probation. It is the second time that he has been convicted in a court of law for incidents stemming from apparent road rage; back in 2008, he was convicted of assaulting another driver in České Budějovice.

There have been other incidents as well, such as injuring a teen who threw snowballs at his team's bus in 2006, or even going back to 2002, when on his first tour of duty with Plzeň, he called Třinec coach Alois Hadamczik a "šišlavý Polák" (lisping Pole), a rather insensitive jab at the coach's way of speaking, which is marked by a strong Silesian accent and has also been affected by vocal-cord surgery. Now the coach of the national team, some are speculating that Hadamczik's omission of Duda from the Czech team's roster at the upcoming Oddset Hockey Games in Sweden stems from the incident ten years ago.

"I don't want to speak about it any further," was how Hadamczik responded to hokej.cz's Vaclav Jáchim. "For sure, Duda has some great advantages with his offensive game, but also some weaknesses in the defensive zone."

Apparently, Duda did recently make an attempt to reconcile with Hadamczik. "He called me, wanted to meet. I went to talk with him, which was a positive step, although his behavior towards me and some players was not adequate."

Hadamczik further said that would not close the door on Duda's inclusion on the Czech national team in future events, however.

A seventh-round draft pick of the Calgary Flames in 1999, Duda has always played with an edge on the ice, and that has served him well. That same edge has obviously caused problems away from it, however. Though months rarely seem to be boring for Duda, the combination of on- and off-ice news January 2012 was quite a bit even for him. It remains to be seen if February will be a bit more nuda for Duda.

Extraliga Round 39

Eurohockey.com's Petr Polák summarizes Round 39 of the Extraliga season, which featured three big match-ups that were all won by the road teams: Vítkovice in Třinec, Brno in Zlín, and Sparta in a duel of the two teams from Prague at O2 Arena, the home of Slavia. And after beating up on Kladno 8-2 last week, Liberec fell big in Plzeň 10-4.

The Extraliga's largest crowd of the season came to watch the Prague derby

 at O2 Arena on Sunday. Photo:  Pavel Vrtiška, hc-slavia.cz.

Slavia Praha 1 - Sparta Praha 2
Sprata had not beaten Slavia on its home ice for almost four years. Until yesterday. The key to Sparta's victory was the power play: Sparta went 2-for-4, while Slavia went 0-for-3. The game was played in front of the season's largest crowd: 11 284.

Oceláři Třinec 1 - Vítkovice 4
Last season's final series between these teams ended 4-1 in games for Třinec. The Třinec Steelers are the current league champions, but all four of this regular season's meetings with Vítkovice went to the Knights of Ostrava. Even though Třinec's Lukáš Bolf opened the scoring in the 27th minute, nine minutes later it was already 3-1 Víktovice. Bolf has been an untimely scorer for his team in recent weeks; in three of Třinec's last four games he has scored the opening goal, but they have lost them all.

Zlín 2 - Kometa Brno 3 (OT)
During this game the home team was in the lead twice, but in both cases Kometa was able to tie the score. Because it was 2-2 after three periods, the teams had to play overtime. Four minutes into the the extra period, Miroslav Holec scored the game-winner and Brno took two points in the standings.

Plzeň 1929 10 - Bílí Tygři Liberec 4
Liberec skated into this game with a four-game winning streak and coming off a huge 8-2 victory over Kladno, but Plzeň was on an even better roll; they had won 11 game a row and did not want the streak to end yet. Plzeň jumped out to a 4-2 first-period lead and then added five more goals in the second period, while Liberec scored just one. The teams traded goals in the third giving Plzeň 10 goals in a game for the first time in 19 years. The hero of the night was Radek Duda, who scored two goals and three assists, while Petr Nedvěd had two points for Liberec; the two are now tied for the league lead with 44 points.

Rytíři Kladno 3 - České Budějovice 1
Finally, after two weeks of the new year, Kladno won a game. Tomáš Knotek contributed a lot to this victory by socring two goals. České Budějovice was seeking for more luck in their shots with no big effect.

Mladá Boleslav 4 - Karlovy Vary 2
As the last-place team in the league's standings, Mladá Boleslav has had to play a relegation round against the best team of the 1.liga three years in a row. This year, all the players and the management of the club are looking for a change. But before the game against direct rival Karlovy Vary, the club was in the last position on the table again. Fortunately for Mladá Boleslav, the home team won this game and moved ahead of Karlovy Vary.

League Standings
	Club	GP	W	OW		OL	L	GF:GA	Pts
1	HC Sparta Praha	39	21	6		6	6	122:79	81
2	HC Plzeň 1929	39	21	6		5	7	140:102	80
3	HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice	39	19	3		5	12	131:95	68
4	HC Moutfield České Budějovice	38	20	3		2	13	107:93	68
5	Bílí Tygři Liberec	39	15	9		1	14	104:100	64
6	PSG Zlín	39	15	5		6	13	83:95	61
7	HC Vítkovice Steel	38	15	4		3	16	104:104	56
8	HC Oceláři Třinec	39	14	3		7	15	110:105	55
9	Rytíři Kladno	38	15	2		3	18	96:110	52
10	HC Kometa Brno	38	12	5		4	17	97:102	50
11	HC Verva Litvínov	39	11	7		3	18	101:127	50
12	HC Slavia Praha	40	13	2		5	20	99:122	48
13	BK Mladá Boleslav	40	11	2		5	22	86:124	42
14	HC Energie Karlovy Vary	39	11	2		4	22	102:124	41

Leading Scorers
	Player	Club		GP	G	A	Pts	+/-	PIM
1	Duda Radek	Plzeň		39	21	23	44	20	66
2	Nedvěd Petr	Liberec		36	17	27	44	1	52
3	Ton Petr	Sparta		39	20	23	43	20	6
4	Koukal Petr	Pardubice		38	16	22	38	13	38
5	Burger Jiří	Vítkovice		37	13	25	38	9	34
6	Straka Martin	Plzeň		39	12	26	38	5	14
7	Tenkrát Petr	Sparta		39	17	20	37	2	26
8	Gulaš Milan	Č. Bud.		36	15	20	35	6	40
9	Hübl Viktor	Litvínov		36	15	19	34	4	26
10	Kolář Jan	Pardubice		39	11	23	34	18	26

Standings and statistics are courtesy hokej.cz.