An impressive debut. He wrote about the NHL in school, now he played in it, and dad celebrated with a plum

The father of an NHL hockey player sent his son’s 12-year-old elementary school notebook into the virtual world, in which his son magically confesses his dream of playing in the NHL one day in children’s handwriting.

“I would like to be a professional ice hockey player, because my mom and dad used to go skating with me at the Zbraslav ice rink when I was three years old,” the little schoolboy begins his text.

“Disadvantages can be found in every sport (…) I also once got hit in unprotected places and my teammates carried me to the substitution table. AU!” wrote Pavel.

“If I want to get into the NHL, the best hockey league in the world, it depends only on me, what I can do now is not enough for me at all,” Pavel concluded his text. Even though the teacher missed a few mistakes, she rewarded the little schoolboy with an A for his cute workbook.

Pavlo’s debut in the NHL was similarly successful, Colorado won over the strong Devils 6:3. The Czech youngster spent six minutes and 59 seconds as the center of the fourth attack, scoring one shot and one negative point in the +/- statistic.

From college to the NHL. As the second Czech

The statistics from the debut may not look dazzling, but Pavel is definitely not paying in the Avalanche organization for a fighter on which the offense will stand. On the contrary, he is a hard worker, a defensive dog, a team player.

“We like his little things defensively,” assistant coach Nolan Pratt explained. “In the AHL, he’s doing a good job on the downs, which we’ve seen in preseason camp as well.”

Pavlov’s journey was not only made special by his impressive school work, he ranks among the remarkable phenomena among our hockey players.

At the turn of 2019 and 2020, he played at the Junior World Championship in Ostrava, but is otherwise a fairly unknown name for domestic hockey fans.

Kobra Praha’s protege left for America at the age of sixteen. He studied for three years at Minnesota State University, where he played in the NCAA. After Andrej Šustra, he became only the second Czech to progress from the university league to the NHL. It was the story of the rejected long man from Prague that inspired him.

Pavel plans to finish studying mechanical engineering and mathematics remotely. In March of this year, the Colorado Avalanche offered him a two-year contract, which he signed.

He started the current season on the farm, at the weekend he received a call-up to the first team of the Avalanche, which was duly celebrated by his closest friends.

His father Stanislav immediately became a followed account on the X network among the hockey community after the publication of his son’s school work. He toasted his son’s arrival with a shot of plum. Then he devoured every moment his son was on camera.

These were the shots that made a boy’s dream come true. Ondřej Pavel no longer paints or writes about the NHL. Now he plays in it.