Last month, the Florida Panthers secured their second consecutive Stanley Cup victory, and it was not without Czech contribution. Goaltender V\u00edtek Van\u011b\u010dek and forward Tom\u00e1\u0161 Nosek both left their mark on the NHL triumph and will hence present the trophy to their hometown fans in August.<\/p>\n
Van\u011b\u010dek\u2019s Havl\u00ed\u010dk\u016fv Brod only got to witness the famed Cup once before in 2006, when Josef Va\u0161\u00ed\u010dek won it with the Carolina Hurricanes. In Nosek\u2019s Pardubice, the Cup is a more frequent visitor. The forward holds vivid memories of seeing ice hockey\u2019s \u201cHoly Grail\u201d in Eastern Bohemia already as an 8-year-old:<\/p>\n
\u201cI first saw the Stanley Cup as a young kid at the skating rink here in Pardubice, when Milan Hejduk and Martin \u0160koula brought it here,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n
The pair won the Stanley Cup in 2001 with the Colorado Avalanche. Playing for the Detroit Red Wings, Hall of Fame goalkeeper Dominik Ha\u0161ek and defenseman Jakub Kindl also brought the trophy home to Pardubice, on 3 occasions between the two of them.<\/p>\n
Nosek will add his name to the long list of hometown heroes on August 12th and hopes for a big turnout:<\/p>\n
\u201cI could keep the Cup to myself for the day, but of course I want to share it with Pardubice and the fans over here, where I grew up. So I\u2019m inviting everybody to Pern\u0161t\u00fdn square on the 12th of August. Hopefully we can iron out the details with the city council, and everything will go ahead as planned,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The Pardubice city council is most certainly feeling the town\u2019s obsession with ice hockey. Currently on their table is a proposal to construct the largest ice hockey arena in the world, presented by Petr D\u011bdek, owner of local team HC Dynamo. According to the initial plan, last year\u2019s Extraliga runners-up should be able to host a seated capacity of roughly 22,300 people by 2027.<\/p>\n
The Stanley Cup visit will, on the contrary, be a one-and-done affair. On August 13th, the trophy will already be heading off with V\u00edtek Van\u011b\u010dek, one hour south to Havl\u00ed\u010dk\u016fv Brod. All is carefully planned out between the two colleagues:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already discussed this with V\u00ed\u0165a, that we will combine our plans. He promised to come with me to Pardubice. So, I of course promised the same thing, and I will travel there with him,\u201d says Nosek.<\/p>\n
Despite the common celebrations, the pair will not be teammates for much longer, as Van\u011b\u010dek\u2019s contract with the Florida Panthers expired this summer. He will begin the upcoming season with the NHL\u2019s newest franchise, the Utah Mammoth, where he will complete a Czech goaltending tandem with Karel Vejmelka.<\/p>\n
Nosek\u2019s deal in the Sunshine State runs on for another year. Despite limited ice time, playing on the 4th offensive line, the forward put up 12 points in 75 games across both the regular NHL season and the Stanley Cup play-offs.<\/p>\n
Both players will be hoping to secure a spot in the Czech squad for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milano-Cortina. It is the first time since 2014 that the NHL will allow players from the league to compete. Only six players have been named to the preliminary roster so far: David Pastr\u0148\u00e1k, Martin Ne\u010das, Luk\u00e1\u0161 Dost\u00e1l, Radko Gudas, Ond\u0159ej Pal\u00e1t, and Pavel Zacha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, the Florida Panthers secured their second consecutive Stanley Cup victory, and it was not without Czech…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,455,458,448,456,457,82],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-czech-republic","tag-ice-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-radio-prague-international","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}