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NHL | Parents fled Slovakia for a better place. And the American son repays their trust in the NHL

“Mom, dad, relatives, maybe even grandma will come. She always watches our matches on TV, or at least watches clips. But recently she had an operation. So I’ll play for her, whether she’s in the hall or in front of the TV. This is a once-in-a-lifetime trip. I’m really experiencing it,” Labance was quoted as saying by the ČTK agency on Wednesday.

During the interview, he spoke Slovak, occasionally an English word crept into his speech, and he apologized for having too much of an American accent. But it is an engaging story. His father Milan played in the 1993/94 season for Spišská Nova Ves in the first year of the Slovak extra league. But when the club owed him a few payments and he, as a newly married man, got into financial difficulties, he decided to wrap up his hockey career and move to the United States with his wife. Here, their daughter Diane and son Kevin were born, who, like “father”, took up hockey.

“We forgot about our friends, we didn’t go to parties. We devoted all our time to the children to prepare them for life as they should,” Milan Labanc told The Mercury News a few years ago.

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The son had talent, but also diligence. Coaches from the OHL described how he was the only one to increase after training, he fired three to four hundred more shots than the others. For this, he listened to his father’s advice, who, for example, instructed him when to increase in training and when, on the contrary, to allow himself to rest. His mother, Anika, was an assistant coach during his school years.

“My parents made sacrifices for me. They gave up their lives in Slovakia to secure a better future for me and my sister in the United States. That attitude motivated me and forced me to work hard so that my parents’ efforts would not go to waste. And there is no better way to repay their trust, rather than making it in the NHL,” he explains.

Just a few years ago, the Slovak Hockey Association was hanging around the player to represent the country of his ancestors. He felt honored and said that his parents and other relatives would be delighted, especially his paternal grandmother, who lives in Slovakia and who likes to stay up late or rather wake up early because of her grandson (relatives from his mother’s side also settled in America). Finally, Labanc represented the USA at the World Championships in 2021 and won bronze in Latvia.

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He is an American, but he has not forgotten his roots, which is also recognized by his teammates from Sharks – Hertl and Šimek. He speaks Slovak-Czech with them, which is sometimes punctuated with English words. And he promises: “We have a house in Jakubany, but I have a lot of work in the summer preparing for the season and I spend the summer in San Jose. I am trying my best to prepare for the next season, each one is important. It is difficult for me to get to Slovakia. But one day I’ll fly there, see my family and have some gnocchi.”

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