WC hockey | Spagr junior reports for duty. You’re getting a little better than me, he heard from the famous dad

In addition to the Olympic gold, dad also has three world championship titles or a bronze from the games in Turin, while David has silver from last year’s 20s. There, however, he caught the eye of coach Rulík, who somewhat unexpectedly called him after the season on the farm in Minnesota to prepare for the world championship. Špaček “survived” the final and relentless cut in the national team and what’s more – he even earned a place in the power team from Rulík.

“I guess I fit into his system. I take it humbly and would like to make the most of that position on the power play. I haven’t played it much in the club this year, but two years ago, after I went to Canada, I was pretty good at it. I know when to shoot, when to record,” says Špaček. “I take it as a huge honor to be able to play here.”

He himself describes that when he was given a quick summons to come from overseas to Bratislava, where he was about to be born, he perceived it as his “second wind”. He takes a critical look at his first boys season at Iowa. “She didn’t turn out the way I expected.”

From Minnesota, with whom he has a contract, there was not even a hint of a chance in the NHL, nor has he yet received feedback on what he should improve. “But the championship could kick it up,” he suspects that the careful Wild scouts will also be in the audience.

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But when it comes to hockey criticism – the good and the bad – then of course he has his dad. He advised him even as a boy, and they still discuss every game to this day. “So sometimes it’s better if I tell him I don’t want to hear it,” he smiles. But then again, don’t have the image of Špaček senior as a strict despot who beats his son in the car on the way from the winter. “When I had a bad match, he told me, otherwise we had fun until the next day. He let it flow.’

It’s funny how small the hockey world can be sometimes. Špaček’s father played in the national team with Marko Židlický, who is in charge of the backs in the national team. Tomáš Plekanec, Rulík’s other assistant, is a former good “uncle” from Montreal, whom David and his father used to visit when he was seven or eight years old during their engagement with the Canadiens. “I guess he was looking at how tall I am now. I’m trying to learn as much as I can from him.”

Plekanec probably perceives the transformation of a boy into a man in a different way. As a capart, David looked a lot like his mom, now he can’t deny his dad on the ice even in civilian clothes. In many ways, the speech is similar, but unlike dad, he is right-handed in hockey.

By the way, father Jaroslav experienced two world championships in Prague, the one in 2004 on the ice as a player, the other nine years later as one of coach Růžička’s assistants. At that time, David also arrived in the auditorium for the second one. “It was an unforgettable experience and you see, now I will be able to play here myself.”

At the time, as a twelve-year-old boy, he was wearing an advertising paper helmet, which he remembered when he was with the national team at a not-so-successful tournament in Brno last week, and his sixteen-year-old brother Jacob was sitting in the stands with his parents wearing a similar helmet.

Since David was born in 2003, he did not personally experience his father’s most famous national team matches at the stadium, he said goodbye to the boy with a bronze medal at the Turin Olympics (2006). And so the memory of the last season in the NHL (2011/12) pops into his head. Spaček was then transferred from Montreal to Carolina, but the rest of the family did not move because of David, who went to school in Canada. And then Dad arrived at the Bell Center, home of the Canadiens, as a guest and immediately scored a goal. “And I laughed as he rejoiced on the ice.”

But then there are the memories from the videotapes that his grandmother sometimes played for him as a boy, and in which, of course, the unforgettable raid in the semi-finals of the 1999 World Cup stands out, after which Jaroslav Špaček started paddling on the ice like… “The guys sometimes tell me that if I score a goal like that, I have to make a kayak. But I haven’t succeeded yet. Dad was a specialist in raids. I also rode them in juniors, but here I would leave it to the attackers. But if I had to go, I know what I would do.”

The method will not reveal. But who knows, maybe Rulík or “Uncle Pleky” will point to him during a penalty shootout. And dad will be watching proudly in the arena…