Petr Nedvěd has known Zacha for a long time, after all ten years ago they started together for Liberec, when the sixteen-year-old Benjamin made his debut in the extra league. “Excellent boy, excellent player. In this respect, all praise,” Nedvěd nods his head.
However, when the conversation turns to the relationship between the manager of the native and the player, he spares a lot more praise for the native of Brno.
Photo: Bob Dechiara, Reuters
Pavel Zacha in a Boston Bruins jersey.
The year was 2022, and Nedvěd was thinking about putting together a team for the Olympic Games in Beijing. He had to have two variants written on paper in case NHL players could eventually go to the Chinese metropolis. “Pavel promised me that he would come,” recalls Nedvěd, but in the end, the most famous hockey league in the world did not let its fighters go to the five-ring tournament for the second time.
“I immediately reminded him that the World Championship is also in May. We thought that if he was healthy and got eliminated (with New Jersey) in the first round of the NHL playoffs, he would come to the World Cup. But then he decided in such a strange way and refused. It was already a closed chapter for me and I broke the stick over Pavel,” admits Nedvěd.
Until the last moment, he believed that Zacha would go to Finland for the championship. He didn’t go. “It was a huge disappointment for me. Martin Ručinský and his predecessors (as general manager of the national team) had the same problems with Zacha,” Nedvěd recalls.
But that doesn’t mean he damned Zach permanently. If the new coach of the national team, Radim Rulík, announces that he wants to have Zacha for the domestic championship next year, he is ready to resume communication and debate with the Bruins forward.
“I need to find out where the buried dog is, because this is not normal,” reports the general manager of the handyman, who would also like to hear from Zach himself the reasons for his frequent excuses.
“I feel sorry for him, because Pavel could already have a medal from Finland,” reminds Nedvěd, that from last year’s World Championships in Tampere, the native eventually returned with a bronze. “It’s his loss. I’m not going to lie, of course he’s an excellent player, he’s still getting better. But we can do without him, believe me,” assures Nedvěd.
I found a small kindergarten, I can return to hockey, reports Petr Nedvěd. I already missed it Video: Sport.cz
He is convinced that Zach is waiting in Boston; a record year in terms of points. “I have expectations that Pavel could play with Paste in attack and I believe he will have an excellent season. And then we will decide (on the World Cup),” adds Nedvěd.
In the program Příklep on Sport.cz, however, he also talked about the search for the right composition of the team for the World Cup and how defensemen are in short supply for Czech hockey. The talk also came about Nedvěd’s emigration to Canada and the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, where he took part in a jersey with a maple leaf on his chest.
