The head coach of Czech Hockey, Filip Pešán, considers the seventh place of juniors at the World Championships to be a failure, but at the same time, according to him, it fully corresponds to reality. The young Czechs were in Edmonton for the third time in a row. “It would probably have to be the coach of Twenties Copperfield in order to play a medal with the material that is coming to the meeting at the moment,” said Pešán.
The way up leads, according to Pešán, who took over the national team A-team as the main coach before this season, despite the improvement of the morale of the players, but also within the clubs.
“As a result, clearly a failure. On the other hand, I must say that it is really an adequate picture of Czech youth hockey, so no surprise for me,” Pešán said today in an online interview with journalists. “However, I liked how humbly and organized the team performed during the tournament. Performance is more important, but I was proud of the team in these matters,” he added.
He is convinced that the union can no longer do much more than at present. “Even if we send gold hockey sticks to clubs and have a concentration on Mars on weekends, we will not postpone the selection of players who will attend the national team meeting,” said Pešán.
He emphasized that it was not possible to work on the skills or condition of the players during the national team camps. “This is the work of clubs and coaches who work with those players for a long time. There I see the only and biggest problem there is that we lack work ethic, whether coaches or players. We will not move forward without work and social morale,” said Pešán.
According to him, work ethic is not needed in clubs. “Unfortunately, we have to come up with methods to control coaches and clubs to work as they should. It is not in the power of the association to constantly go around all trainings and all clubs, whether players approach training and all coaches work as they should,” Pešán said.
Filip Pešán evaluates the Junior World Championship 2021. | Video: Hokej.cz
The disgrace of Michal Teplý
In connection with the poor morale of the players, he used the example from the November Karjala tournament, where he took a number of juniors with the A-team to help prepare them for the championship in Canada. “I didn’t want to talk about it so as not to throw the team ahead of the World Cup, but it is unthinkable for me to have to raise my voice to Michal Teplý, who was invited as a junior to a national team meeting,” said Pešán.
They even considered removing the player from the team with the coach of the twenties, Karel Mlejnek. “These are situations that opponents, who are so much ahead of us, do not solve at all. They do not solve the approach, but what system to put the player in. On the other hand, we deal with a lot of things around,” said the coach.
He believes that Teplý, who signed a rookie contract with Chicago in April, will learn a lesson. “I hope it was a disgrace for him, and I hope it will be a disgrace for him to read what I said. I was shocked at what the players in training looked like and how they approached him. Beware, it wasn’t everyone. But Karel Mlejnek can’t do anything with something like that, he can’t compete with Canada or America, “stated Pešán.
“We can study world trends, contribute financially and methodically, which has been happening very significantly in the last few years, and coaches have methodical materials in the most advanced form. However, the seriousness of the situation lies with the clubs,” said the coach. “The time when we tried to persuade and persuade is over. We have to use harder tools much more.”
Several steps planned before this season were supposed to contribute to the improvement. “The number of academies would already be significantly reduced this season, as well as the number of teams in the junior league of academies. The conditions for maintaining the status of the academy are also tightened.” But there will be a reduction in academies. If the season starts, as it should, the junior extra league will be reduced. And we are planning changes to competitions across the entire system and age categories, “said Pešán.
It bothers him that young players do not have more space in the extra league and clubs do not work with them enough in this regard. “Nevertheless, even some of them refused to join Litoměřice as a project that is probably below their level. If it is better for them then eight minutes in the extra league… There is a big discrepancy between the player, club, parent and agent on the one hand and opinion on the other hand, “said Pesan.
The only Czech victory over a strong opponent was recorded by the Czechs against Russia:
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