Honest Vojan on Junior Extraliga: Worst format I’ve experienced | Hokej.cz

During the spring months, we will be impatiently waiting for news from the hockey association about the format of youth competitions. Petr Vojan, head of the successful academy of Pilsen Škodovka and coach of the local juniors, strongly leaned on the one offered by the junior extra league last year.

He thus confirmed the opinion of the majority of youth coaches and players that last year’s adjustment of the highest junior competition really did not work for Czech hockey.

Whether it is its re-expansion from fourteen to sixteen teams, or the cancellation of the long regular season, to which there were very positive responses in the 2022/23 season.

“Quite honestly, I can say for myself that it is a scam and an unfair competition. Undoubtedly the worst format I’ve experienced with a junior girl,” started Petr Vojan in an interview for the Pilsen Škodovka website.

“Just expanding the competition again was a huge mistake. I repeat again that any system of superstructures and bases, deletion of points and other things like playing days Thursday – Saturday are nonsense. It only leads to a decrease in the quality of the competitions, because as soon as the teams gained certainty of promotion to the higher superstructure, they immediately sent the best players to the Chance League, then artificially aged the teenagers to the junior league, etc. If we want to have quality competitions, this cannot happen at all,” he continued.

One of the bizarre consequences of the format in connection with the absence of another “brake” in the hockey rules was the strengthening of teams from lower superstructure groups by those who played higher superstructures and therefore did not have to worry about saving. Actually, it’s surprising that more clubs didn’t use him.

“After all, it is not possible for Jihlava, after having the certainty of promotion to a higher superstructure, to let two of its best players into teams that are fighting for salvation. After all, that would not happen in a long-term competition in which the fight is for promotion to the playoffs and relegation to the last rounds. It is not possible for Vítkovice to let two top attackers from the youth team to Poruba in order to save themselves in the youth extra league. And there were more of those cases. After all, this is totally unfair behavior,” thinks Vojan.

He also shook up last year’s innovation, which was supposed to ensure that junior teams do not retain more players than they really need. And so that hockey players who do not have a place in the lineup will be able to go elsewhere for free.

“We have absurdly closed rosters, which do not include overage players in a competition that is literally a player walk-through. During the season, clubs from the Extraliga and Chance League reach out to the teams as they need. Closed rosters make sense maybe in America where this doesn’t happen. Again, we copied something that cannot be applied in our conditions at all…” continued the head of the Pilsen academy.

Responsibility for last year’s adjustment rests with the executive committee of the Czech Hockey Association, headed by president Alois Hadamczik. He justified the changes, for example, by financial savings for the clubs.

According to Vojan, the Indians did not save at all. On the contrary.

“In the U20 category, it’s not normal for some teams not to meet each other for the whole season, and some of them were played maybe 12 times, including preparation. It is not possible to play the Thursday-Saturday system in one superstructure and the Friday-Saturday trip system in the other during the same season and then join the playoffs. In addition, the season cost us much more financially than if a long-term competition in the form of trips had been played,” stated Vojan on the club’s website.

Hadamczik’s other argument was to increase the attractiveness of the competition, in which there should still be something to play for. In autumn, for promotion to the higher superstructure, in winter for direct promotion to the quarter-finals and additional promotion to the preliminary round, in spring, in addition to the title, also for salvation.

However, it is questionable how much this idea is compatible with the main goal of the academic categories – to improve players and move them towards top hockey.

According to Petr Vojan, whose junior team from Pilsen did not advance to the higher superstructure, only very little.

“If I compare it with last year’s model of the long-term part, where we were in the same situation as this year due to player departures, we also started badly there. The new team was formed on the fly and from the beginning of the season it looked different. However, it was a long-term competition, during which a lot could be saved and conceptually worked with young players. After the new year, we already had a string of victories and finally finished fourth after the regular season,” he recalled.

“That was not possible this year, because everything important was decided within a few months, practically until the end of November, and that is a really short time. Some conceptual work began to appear again at the turn of December and January. Except in the group for promotion to the play-offs, where we again had a long string of victories and at least a month we had rest for work and time for some development training… We sacrificed at least the end of the superstructure for this, but unfortunately they did not completely tune it towards the playoffs off,” he returned to the team’s elimination in the preliminary round.

The past season was also accompanied by the return of overage players in the U21 age category. Each team could use three such hockey players in the match. As it turned out, they were used the most by paper weaker units fighting for salvation.

It was Plzeň that deployed the least amount of overage hockey players out of all the participants in the competition. Or the only hockey player.

“We only used Matěj Korčák a few times, in situations where we simply had no one to play with due to rosters, injuries and illnesses. During the season, it became clear that the true purpose of overage players is only to improve the quality of junior teams and to fill the holes after the departure of younger and more talented players,” Vojan described on the website hcplzen.cz.

“There was perhaps not a single overage player in the competition, apart from Hauser, who only solved Sparta’s problems in the crisis moments of the season, who has a real chance to play stably in the extra league in the future. But I understand this, the quality of the competition would be really bad without them. The question is how to keep the players in the Czech Republic,” he pointed out that the biggest pain in the junior competition stems from the departure of youngsters abroad.

They also impressed the Pilsen junior. “A total of 13 players left before the season, the national team goalkeepers Vondraš and Mařík. But I was most saddened by the departure of Matyáš Borák, who I think had a great chance to jump to the A team. He is a difference player, he did well last season. We talked to him several times during the preparation, discussed the whole situation, but he still went to a lower junior competition in America… Only he himself knows if it was useful and if it moved him somewhere. Now that he has returned prematurely from America, he will have to rebuild his lost position. And the question is whether he will succeed and where…” said Petr Vojan.

The issue of departures is open to wide discussion in the context of the overall social situation, but the format of the junior extra league is based on only a few “heads” from the hockey association. They will soon decide what the competition will look like in the next year.

“Everyone sends it in comments to the union. So I hope that nothing like this will happen next season, those who are involved in it every day and know the issue in detail will be listened to, and everything will finally be properly evaluated and logical and constructive adjustments will be made,” added the head of Pilsen Academy Petr Vojan on the club website.

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