CSKA Sofia was the winner in the first round of the 2015 Continental Cup after three straight victories against CG Puigcerda, Izmir BJBSK and Beostar Belgrade. The 23-time Bulgarian champions will play this weekend in the second round, group B in Bremerhaven, with the host Fischtown Pinguins (GER), Belfast Giants (GBR) and Tilburg Trappers (NED).
CSKA Sofia is the first Bulgarian club to win a tournament in the history of the Continental Cup and to earn promotion to the second round. One big reason for the team’s recent success began in Prievidza, a city with 49,400 inhabitants in the central-western region Slovakia.
The backbone of the “Red Team” is made up by eight players coming from Prievidza, led by team captain Juraj Dusicka. There are other foreign influences too on the team – with four Russians (between them the 2-times KHL champion Andrei Mukhachev) and one Swedish player (Anders Johnsson – member of Team Sweden for the Red Bull Crashed Ice World Championship 2012), but the story behind the formation of the “Slovak Eight” is making positive waves in many different ways.
“Prievidza doesn’t have great hockey traditions, but Andrej Sekera who plays for Carolina Hurricanes in NHL is from our town,” said Dusicka.
“Marek Viedensky is in the national team and after six seasons in North America is now in Finland. Martin Stajnoch is playing for Slovan Bratislava in KHL. Our basketball team had better results in the past and we have a famous tennis player coming from Prievidza – Miloslav Mecir (editor’s note – he was ranked number 4 in the world, won the gold medal in singles at the 19888 Seoul Olympics and played in the finals at US Open-1986 and Australian Open-1989).”
Dusicka came to Sofia in the end of 2009 and the only reason was…love. He met a woman from the capital of Bulgaria during his summer vacation in the Black Sea resort Albena. At the time Juraj thought he was finished with his hockey career, after playing his last season for MS HK Prievidza in 2008-09 (1st league). In the last 2-3 years Juraj was playing and working in the same time. He had one season stint abroad, in lower tier teams in Germany in 2005-06, but coming to Bulgaria he didn’t have any idea of playing hockey again.
“I found a job and everything was going smoothly. Then a friend from Prievidza gave me the idea that I can play hockey in Sofia,” recalls Juraj. In the autumn of 2010 he became a member of the Bulgarian champion at that time, HC Slavia, and was there for two seasons before transferring to CSKA Sofia for the 2012-13 season, playing a big role during the CSKA’s title run, which was the first since 1986.
The “Red Team” decided to play in the 2014 Continental Cup and needed strengthening for its comeback to the European ice, and Dusicka was asked to help add some talent to the team.
“The head coach asked me if I can help with bringing some players from Slovakia. I spoke with former teammates, who as me were finished playing, and they agreed to come to CSKA,” says Dusicka. That way his friends Kristian Simo, Viktor Stefanech and Igor Kaikl played for CSKA Sofia in the first round of the Continental Cup in Belgrade (27-29 September 2013) and in the Bulgarian Championships, where the team won for a second straight year.
The Slovak contingent grew this season with the addition of Kristian’s brother Andrej and his former teammates Igor Batora, Marek Mendel and Miroslav Holubek. All of them are from Prievidza and had played for the local team in the 1st Slovak league almost their entire careers.
“We all know each other. I played with half of them in the past, so there is a great atmosphere in the locker room. In the beginning I was afraid that there will be some problems with the language, but they started to understand Bulgarian very quickly and if they don’t – I’m there to translate. They are happy to help the team and to have the opportunity to play hockey again as hobby. The passion is still there, for sure,” says Dusicka.
The success of CSKA Sofia in the Continental Cup is well known and accepted with pride in Prievidza. From this season there are two Bulgarian players in the Prievidza’s youth teams – Georgi Blagoev (born 1997) and Alex Stoilov (2000). This year the young players from CSKA Sofia had the great opportunity to play series of matches against Slovak’s teams – The U18 and U14 teams had four games each in March with four wins and four defeats.
“This is the way for the young Bulgarian players to gain more experience against quality teams, to have more games, because there are not so many in the local championships. Some of them can develop their careers with Slovak teams as well. The good example for that is Ivan Hodulov, who played three seasons in Piestany and then was able to find a spot in MHL – last season in Dynamo Saint Petersburg and this season in Zalgiris Vilnius. He improved much more than his peers, who practiced in Bulgaria. There is a great need for more ice rinks in the country, not only in Sofia, but in other big cities too,” says Dusicka, who last year was an assistant coach for Bulgaria’s men National team in the 2014 IIHF World Championships Division III.
The captain of CSKA Sofia is motivated for a good performance in the second round of the Continental Cup in Bremerhaven:
“Our ambitions starts with the first game against the hosts. We want to give our best effort there. The level in this group is much higher than the one in the first round. The players that we’ll face are professionals and we are working and playing for fun at the same time. But we want to make them struggle against us, to hate that they play us. The main goal for our team is to bring more interest to ice hockey in Bulgaria. We want the kids to watch better hockey and to be more motivated to practice and develop their skills. This is the first step and in the future the idea is to have more Bulgarians in the team instead of foreigners”.
CSKA Sofia opens against hosts Fischtown Pinguins Bremerhaven on Friday.
IVAN TCHECHANKOV |
