The hockey players listened to the wishes of the fans, the national emblem will return to the national team jerseys

The national team will present themselves in them for the first time next week at the Karjala tournament in Växjö, Sweden, and Tampere, Finland, which will kick off the new year of the Euro Hockey Tour.

“Promises must be kept. I promised when I took office that we would return to the national emblem,” said Czech hockey president Alois Hadamczik.

“All the successes of Czech ice hockey were in such a similar jersey. The spectators wished that the emblem was on the chest again. We need the spectators to come and cheer us on in as many numbers as possible. This is the first such signal for the coaches to prepare the team in such a way that we they were successful,” Hadamczik said with a smile.

The national emblem disappeared from the national team jerseys in 2018, when the hockey association led by Hadamczik’s predecessor Tomáš Král decided to replace it with a logo with a lion’s head. He did this for marketing reasons, so that he would not lose money from the sale of replica jerseys, since the national emblem could not be copyrighted.

Now, this issue will be resolved in such a way that the official jerseys and replicas will continue to have the lion’s head, which the association has registered as a trademark. “The lion is still a symbol of Czech hockey,” said sales and marketing director Ondřej Šnaidauf.

Five years ago, the jersey without the national emblem caused anger among many fans and some players. Šnaidauf said that at the end of last season, the association did a marketing survey, which clearly showed that the fans wanted to have the national emblem on the national team jersey.

“We also did a poll on social networks and the national coat of arms won. Even the players wanted to have the national coat of arms on their chests,” Šnaidauf said.

Tomáš Plekanec, who will be an assistant coach, will expand the implementation team of the hockey national team. The former outstanding striker ended his career last week.

National team coach Radim Rulík nominated newcomers Jakub Málk, Jiří Ticháček, Ondřej Kovařčík and Adam Kubík for the Karjala tournament. The twenty-seven-member squad is missing, for example, the most productive player of the extra league, Lukáš Radil, or Petr Kodýtek, who is currently the top scorer in the Finnish competition.

Nominations:

Goalkeepers: Dominik Pavlát (Pilsen), Jakub Málek (Ilves Tampere/Fin.).

Defenders: Tomáš Dvořák, Jan Košťálek (both Pardubice), Petr Zámorský (Plzen), Filip Pyrochta (Mladá Boleslav), Jiří Ticháček (Kladno), Ronald Knot (Liberec), Libor Zábranský (Ässät Pori/Fin.), Martin Jandus (Kärpät Oulu /Fin.), Dominik Mašín (Ilves Tampere/Fin.), Jakub Galvas (Malmö/Sweden.).

Attackers: Jan Ordoš, Adam Kubík (both České Budějovice), Ondřej Kovařčík, Michal Kovařčík (both Mikkelin Jukurit/Fin.), Jakub Flek (Kometa Brno), Lukáš Sedlák (Pardubice), Pavel Kousal (Sparta Prague), Daniel Voženílek (Třinec) , Radan Lenc (HV71/Sweden), Lukáš Jašek (IK Oskarshamn/Sweden), David Tomášek (Färjestad/Sweden), Martin Frk (SC Bern/Sweden), Michael Špaček (Ambri Piotta/Sweden), Matěj Stránský (Davos/Switzerland), Petr Kodýtek (Ilves Tampere/Fin.).