WJC: 2015 — Czech Republic Roster Talk

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It doesn't look good does it? :( Especially when you read the comments beneath the article where people talk about having to have connections, slipping the coach some money and how son's of coaches or those with famous surnames play instead of those with real talent. I thought that most of this would have gone with the arrival of Lener. :shakehead

I'm starting to lose my hopes with Lener a little. I still believe he has good intentions but he has some people around him.... he's not that strong personality to make it all clean all by himself
 
I'm starting to lose my hopes with Lener a little. I still believe he has good intentions but he has some people around him.... he's not that strong personality to make it all clean all by himself

Yeah, he's in a difficult position. I feel like sometimes he partially closes an eye on some of the stuff that goes on because, like you said, he can't clean up all the mess himself. But look on the bright side, at least our football team is bringing us joy! :) :handclap:
 
Yeah, he's in a difficult position. I feel like sometimes he partially closes an eye on some of the stuff that goes on because, like you said, he can't clean up all the mess himself. But look on the bright side, at least our football team is bringing us joy! :) :handclap:

I got the same feeling.

Yeaah.. still, I'd rather the hockey team to bring us joy :) But we see it that negative way right now after all this. It's pretty clear there aren't many things right in czech hockey. Still, we have several very good prospects to looking for in the next years :)
 
A fair point, but if you read further down there are others who are adding similar tales.....

Sure but they may very well have the same motivation as Zacha. I find it rather hypocritical (not necessarily pointing towards you) to hear people complaining all the time about parents who meddle aggresively in teams' issues, who attempt to influence teams' tactics, players' selections etc., and then, all of a sudden, approving Zacha's comments. Because frankly, it's pretty much the same story - my child is a prodigy, if he's not successful it's always the fault of the people around him, I know better than coaches who happen to be incompetent idiots and so on and so forth. Zacha has some good observations about the dysfunctional Czech system but I'm not sure if people like him are not actually a part of the problem. Plus, the content of his criticism is one thing, the abrasive and ego-driven form another one.

One thing is certain - with all this years-long drama, he's been putting an enormous and unhealthy pressure on his son.
 
Sure but they may very well have the same motivation as Zacha. I find it rather hypocritical (not necessarily pointing towards you) to hear people complaining all the time about parents who meddle aggresively in teams' issues, who attempt to influence teams' tactics, players' selections etc., and then, all of a sudden, approving Zacha's comments. Because frankly, it's pretty much the same story - my child is a prodigy, if he's not successful it's always the fault of the people around him, I know better than coaches who happen to be incompetent idiots and so on and so forth. Zacha has some good observations about the dysfunctional Czech system but I'm not sure if people like him are not actually a part of the problem. Plus, the content of his criticism is one thing, the abrasive and ego-driven form another one.

One thing is certain - with all this years-long drama, he's been putting an enormous and unhealthy pressure on his son.

While I understand what you're saying and it's true that sometimes this may cause unhealthy environment overall, I think it's important to have some kind of opposition to czech hockey assosation. There are many many things that are just wrong and it's good when someone points them out. I agree that Zacha sr. can be sometimes too touchy when it comes to his son but the problems he often writes about exist. And they are bigger than people like him. It would be cool to see both sides get togehter and come up with some ideas how to improve things since I strongly believe that both sides have at least little interest in Czech hockey.
 
So it seems like there really wasn't a very good atmosphere in the dressing room based on what Klok said.
 
Mr. Zacha's article is a good read. It's hard to disagree with him, even though it's a little biased. He is spot on with the problems that we have.

Even though I don't like Prerost at all, I really wouldn't wish a collapse to anybody.
His coaching was terrible, but I'm pretty sure there's pressure on him from the association not to select players from CHL. It's all politics. Maybe he wanted some players but he just couldn't have them. You can feel that in the apologies for selecting Zacha.

What is really sad is Lener's reaction to the article. Instead of trying to objectively disprove what Mr. Zacha says point by point, he just basically attacks his person (instead of the points made) verbally. The problem with Lener is that he is trying to be friends with everybody in the association. Not a way to change things.
 
More and more thing comming out. It's clear that this team was from the very beginning built out of unhealthy roots and couldn't succeed.
I agree that Prerost probably isn't the one who come up with that dirty trick on players playing overseas. People in the background were pulling some strings.
 
Personally I don't trust Zacha entirely. It's good to read him, but I take it just as a piece of the puzzle. He's always had his own agenda though. That needs to be taken into consideration.
 
While I understand what you're saying and it's true that sometimes this may cause unhealthy environment overall, I think it's important to have some kind of opposition to czech hockey assosation. There are many many things that are just wrong and it's good when someone points them out. I agree that Zacha sr. can be sometimes too touchy when it comes to his son but the problems he often writes about exist. And they are bigger than people like him. It would be cool to see both sides get togehter and come up with some ideas how to improve things since I strongly believe that both sides have at least little interest in Czech hockey.

Opposition is fine but the question is, what kind of opposition? This is just pure destruction. It's pretty likely Přerost lost the locker-room very soon but I wonder if with this sort of "parental influence", there had ever been a way for him not to lose it. I'm afraid that while Zacha Sr. may be the most vocal of these parents, he's hardly the only one. And this is just what Zacha's father decides to express publicly, can you imagine what his son and some other players must be hearing at home, behind closed doors?

Btw, these issues are certainly not helping Zacha's draft status. Like it or not, scouts and GMs are taking notes what a nuissance his father is. Carl Lindros someone? Well, at least Eric had 2.6 PPG in his draft year. I find it quite bizarre to label the Junior as the ultimate team player, "the kind of player you need to win the Cup", and then pull drama such as this. And not for the first time, far from that.
 
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Opposition is fine but the question is, what kind of opposition? This is just pure destruction. It's pretty likely Přerost lost the locker-room very soon but I wonder if with this sort of "parenting influence", there had ever been a way for him not to lose it. I'm afraid that while Zacha Sr. may be the most vocal of these parents, he's hardly the only one. And this is just what Zacha's father decides to express publicly, can you imagine what his son and some other players must be hearing at home, behind closed doors?

Btw, these issues are certainly not helping Zacha's draft status. Like it or not, scouts and GMs are taking notes what a nuissance his father is. Carl Lindros someone? Well, at least Eric had 2.6 PPG in his draft year. I find it quite bizarre to label the Junior as the ultimate team player, "the kind of player you need to win the Cup", and then pull drama such as this. And not for the first time, far from that.

Prerost lost the locker room primarily because of the fact that as a coach he has never really achieved anything of significance and thus has little authority. His attempt to gain some level of authority by kicking out Karabacek because he slept in is pathetic. I supported Prerost last year because I felt that he was the only one who had the balls for the job given how many of the other coaches (with the exception of Ruzicka) were too afraid of media criticism to take it. This year, whether it was due to a new doctrine introduced by CSLH about side-lining or excluding NA players so that they can proclaim how amazingly good the European way is, he has totally lost my support and respect.

I have no problem with Zacha's comments. I understand that they come with some degree of bias and that he is trying to protect his son, but at the same time, this critique is welcome, given how badly the U-20 team was handled this year. Aren't you glad you get to know why Prerost may have made the decisions he did?

Zacha's draft status will be fine I think. Most scouts will understand that the coach was awful, made questionable decisions and that there was a bad atmosphere in the team. Even if he does fall in the draft it doesn't really matter because he will become an NHL player.
 
Plus, the content of his criticism is one thing, the abrasive and ego-driven form another one.

I don't know, I didn't see it that way. The comment about how CSLH didn't approve of his plan did seem out of place and egoistic though.

What people aren't talking about are these absurd national team contracts and fines for missing out tournaments.....
 
I don't know, I didn't see it that way. The comment about how CSLH didn't approve of his plan did seem out of place and egoistic though.

What people aren't talking about are these absurd national team contracts and fines for missing out tournaments.....

Exactly, now everyone talking about Zacha, Karabacek, Klok, the team, Prerost... but that is all just one tourney... the real problem is somewhere else.
 
In my opinion there is definetely problem with constructive opposition and discussion.

Czech hockey definetely lacks constructive judgment of the changes that were made in Lener era. To be honest, and it might be surpripsing, I really blame Czech TV for not having balls to open the discussion. Hockey have so much time in TV but these guys like Zaruba etc. have always looked like they transform to be friends of players or federation bosses.

Therefore czech hockey lacks venue for discussion. Look several years back when everybody realized that czech youth program sucks.Did they try to find any concrete culprit?? For sure no,it was just said that we fell asleep. What a typical czech reaction.....

Then everybody was satisfied with changes made by Kral and Lener and again no one even tried to objectively evaluate them.

As the result of this apparent nonactivity ,there appeared just two subjects striving to be critics (Zacha and Sport), however both do it in very controversial way IMO. Zacha seemed to me that he would love to live in ideal world with everything super perfect which is impossible. Sport was mostly silent and then they came up with reaction after the tourney in a way which did not give Prerost any chance no to look like an idiot.

Its funny when you read the interview with Fischer where he completely calmly described how limited were players form NA in the past. And Holik with his 50000 CZK scandal is pointing out that we have to get rid of this politics etc.....

This is definetely not the enviroment where you can reach any effective achievements....
 
In my opinion there is definetely problem with constructive opposition and discussion.

Czech hockey definetely lacks constructive judgment of the changes that were made in Lener era. To be honest, and it might be surpripsing, I really blame Czech TV for not having balls to open the discussion. Hockey have so much time in TV but these guys like Zaruba etc. have always looked like they transform to be friends of players or federation bosses.

This is definetely not the enviroment where you can reach any effective achievements....

What happened to those discussions they used to have about the state of Czech hockey after the WJC sometime in January? Those were good to watch, even if they didn't get to the core of all the issues. I also agree that there needs to be an evaluation of Lener's work.
 
So I read some of the articles. Wow its definitely going to take a very long time to fix all this. Jakub Petr as head coach next year is a start, but its not even close to enough to fix everything.
I hope Petr has 100% authority of who makes the team next year and who doesn't though.. Or is that wishful thinking?
 
What did he say?

He defended Prerost, said that Karabacek didn't sleep in only once but kept doing it repeatedly as did Zacha (who shared a room with Karabacek). He also said that both of them often refused to participate in practice, just stood around doing nothing, not even pretending to care.
 
So I read some of the articles. Wow its definitely going to take a very long time to fix all this. Jakub Petr as head coach next year is a start, but its not even close to enough to fix everything.
I hope Petr has 100% authority of who makes the team next year and who doesn't though.. Or is that wishful thinking?

I hope so too. If Petr doesn't get appointed (for whatever reason) I'd like to see Ruzicka take over once his contract is done after the WC. I don't think anyone would interfere with his selections!
 
Stay tuned guys, Zacha Sr. was meant to meet up with Kral on a TV show tomorrow but they are both too busy. But it does look like we may get that discussion after all! :handclap:
 
It's too bad Zacha couldn't make it yesterday. That would be really fun discussion. Anyway, Kral said basically nothing again, just that the things Zacha said aren't true (as he repeats for like three days). To me he didn't seem trustworthy at all.
 
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