From a modern hall to a tin shop. Holt will dress more, says the Olomouc reinforcement Fridrich

The Ridery protege went through the junior extra league in Ostrava and won a permanent place in the senior roster as well. In total, he has 169 starts in the top competition, in which he scored 57 points (28 + 29). Except for alternating starts in Havířov and Šumperk, he did not play for another team. That is why he is now facing his first move away from home.

Did you ever want to leave?
It has two levels. I will definitely miss a lot of people. I know almost everyone there. With coaches, players, roller skaters, I like it there. It’s home to me. The second level is that it was probably time to try something new, try a new challenge and go somewhere else.

And why to Olomouc?
I made decisions during the season. Olomouc has been interested in me for a long time. I knew there was a lot of interest on her part. They offered me decent terms. At the same time, I feel that I will be able to continue to improve and work on myself in Mora. In short, I think it can be a shift for me.

When did the first contact come from Mora?
It is rather handled by the agent. But I would say that the contact between the agent and Olomouc already took place during the season. I’ll keep it to myself when I knew.

Do you expect to have a bigger role in Mora? On the other hand, towards the end of the season you played over twenty minutes per game in Vítkovice.
In Vítkovice, it changed a lot depending on the mood of the team, how things went and didn’t go well. I hope that things will be more stable in Olomouc. I will try to make my role as good as possible. Of course, I have to prepare and I believe that if I get off to a good start and everything falls into place, I could have a bigger role than in Vítkovice.

You played the third formation there. At Mora, however, the rule is that more or less all squadrons get similar time. In other words, even here you can easily expect “up to” the third formation.
But it’s also about who plays the key moments. If you are set on overpowered and weakened. We will see that in the season. I don’t want to go to Olomouc thinking that I have to play somewhere. I can’t influence that, and secondly, I have to fight for it myself on the ice.

How do you rate the past year in Vítkovice?
It was similar from an individual point of view as well as a team point of view. The beginning of the season did not go well for us. Then came a string of wins, when I also scored. The second half of the season was better, but overall the picture was probably not what I wanted before the season. It’s really hard to catch up when the beginning doesn’t go as expected.

What moment in the Vítkovice jersey will you remember the most?
There’s more to it. Certainly at his beginnings in the A team, matches in front of a lot of people. Those were great experiences for me. I must also mention the season before last, when we lost to Hradec in the semi-finals in the seventh game. It annoys us to this day, it was a great shame. And I will remember this season too, because of the ride in the Champions League. We were one game away from the final. We weren’t the worse team in the semi-finals, but we didn’t score goals. Nevertheless, it was an experience. We looked at other countries, we played against quality teams. Those matches were very good. We proved to ourselves that we can easily play with teams from the Swedish, Finnish or Swiss leagues.

What was Olomouc’s opponent like?
Very high quality. I think they’ve broken out of that reputation of a team that just defends. In my opinion, this has not been true at all in recent years. They played active, unpleasant hockey, attacked a lot, but tried to play on the puck. With Mora, it was always a crazy match. They play physical hockey, it was always challenging.

Are you looking forward to the tin shop? In the summer, you will be annoyed by the fog during training, and in the winter by the cruel scythe.
So I’m going to dress up more. But I am definitely looking forward to the atmosphere, because it has always been exceptional in Olomouc. We played in the playoffs there and it was unbelievable. I still remember it, we didn’t even hear the referee whistle. There was a great atmosphere.

Since their promotion to the extra league in 2014, Mora has never made it further than the quarter-finals. Does he have it?
There are teams that have better quality players, higher budgets. But I think that it was always the case with Olomouc that they had a lot of injuries, they didn’t even have much luck. If it fits, everyone will be healthy, the semi-finals are real.

At the same time, Olomouc many experts regularly pass the fight for survival before the season.
That hasn’t been true for a long time. Olomouc repeatedly proves that it is never in that place. Forecasts can give a hint, but if they are repeatedly wrong, then it is not a good guess.

Jan Bambula transferred to Vítkovice from Mora this year. Did you talk to each other about the mutual exchange?
More like now. We know each other, we are friends. But we didn’t talk about it during the season. We each had our season, our things. Moreover, it is usually more secret information, it is not immediately known.

Do you know anyone else from Mora’s cabin?
I know enough guys. I played with Tomáš Černý and Jan Káňa in Vítky. Then Alex Rašner and from sight also other boys.

What ambitions will Petr Fridrich have in Olomouc?
To improve performance-wise, game-wise, in terms of points and goals. And of course helping the team as much as possible.

Did you have other offers?
There were some offers in the extra league. But great interest, trust and good conditions decided for Olomouc.

Even the distance from home?
I tried to ignore it. I made decisions based on what would be best for my hockey development. Of course, the distance is a nice bonus.

Now you have individual training, right?
We start summer training next week, so I’ve been working individually for about two or three weeks. It was a long break this year, we haven’t played for two months. After the holiday, I have already started preparing so that the body is ready for the load.