{"id":459106,"date":"2026-02-10T00:21:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T00:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/459106\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T00:21:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T00:21:16","slug":"pastrnak-chilling-with-team-czechia-ahead-of-pressure-filled-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/459106\/","title":{"rendered":"Pastrnak ‘chilling’ with Team Czechia ahead of pressure-filled Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Obviously, what he is doing for Boston now is amazing and hopefully he will be amazing for this team as well.”<\/p>\n

Here, Pastrnak is on the biggest stage of his career, occupying a moment he dreamed about since he was a child, one that seemed so far away until the NHL returned to Olympic play for this cycle.<\/p>\n

“My whole career, I have been waiting,” Pastrnak said after practice at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena. “For a kid in Europe, you don’t have much chance to watch NHL because of the time change, so all you do is watch Olympics and the national team, so this is an amazing feeling.”<\/p>\n

Czechia opens Group A play against Team Canada on Thursday (10:40 a.m. ET; Peacock, USA, CBC Gem, CBC) Canada has won each of the past two Olympics in which NHL players participated (2010, 2014). It also plays Switzerland and France during the preliminary round.<\/p>\n

That’s all in the future. For now, Pastrnak is soaking in this experience.<\/p>\n

“We go game by game, enjoying the moment,” he said, flashing the beguiling smile that has made him a commercial star in North America. “We’ve been waiting, pretty much our generation, all of our career to play in an Olympics. So far, enjoying every second of it. Being at Olympics is a dream come true.”<\/p>\n

That attitude is one his teammates here are eager to embrace. Pastrnak sets the tone and they follow.<\/p>\n

“We feel like he’s just chilling,” forward Ondrej Palat<\/a> said. “He is obviously a superstar in the NHL, but it’s so much fun to play with him and just watch. He’s very relaxed, just chilling, doing the things he loves, and he’s playing very loose.”<\/p>\n

Voracek says the pressure is looming for Pastrnak, as it does for the game’s greats. Soon it will find Pastrnak here.<\/p>\n

“Every time he laces them up anywhere — Boston, Czech — there is always pressure on ‘Pasta,'” Voracek said. “There’s always pressure to score, pressure to win the game, always pressure to do this. So far, in his career, he delivers. So, he’s used to it.<\/p>\n

“There’s a different excitement maybe, but his approach to the Olympics is going to be the same as every other game — enjoy it and find a way to win, no matter how.”<\/p>\n

Pastrnak doesn’t acknowledge the pressure, saying it’s a team game and that he and his teammates, “are in this together and we will win as one and lose as one.”<\/p>\n

Czechia has two more practice days before the test begins against the powerhouse Canadians.<\/p>\n

Then and there, Pastrnak will be ready to author the next chapter in his story, possibly raising his profile even higher, if that is even possible.<\/p>\n

He won’t rush the moment. That’s not his style.<\/p>\n

“I want it to start, but I know when it starts its going to go so fast,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Obviously, what he is doing for Boston now is amazing and hopefully he will be amazing for this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-459106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}