Hadamczik pushed the change in the youth, the Union has arguments

Every year, Czech hockey is looking for a way to improve its position to start producing more talented players. Sometimes it reduces the number of teams in youth competitions, sometimes expands, then changes systems. The greatest emotions have always worked with rapid events, when the competitions were announced a few months before the start.

Now, however, the Association has announced another a year in advance: from summer 2026, the U16 category (historically younger adolescents), which disappeared in 2018. Cosmetic change? No. This is a fundamental adjustment for working with youth. Another one is packed. The three -year -old junior extraleague (U20 contest) becomes two years, because the category under 18 years of age (now U17) will be re -established.

The elite category of the ninth classes has proved its worth, so it remains. As a result, since the 2026/27 season, the best Czech young players will pass through the extra league under 15 years, then under 16 years, followed by a competition under 18 years and under 20 years.

“The clubs consider the clubs unpromising and unsystematic,” she sent her opinion of the extra league into the media at the beginning of August. Her representatives in the hockey government – in the Executive Committee – are tasked with working on a revision.

The Extraliga points to the fact that one extra category has been created, so the quality will be reduced and the costs will increase.

“The fact is that the current project is simply not functional,” says Pavel Geffert, a youth development manager, on behalf of the hockey association. “Sometimes I find that I hear how all the sun is now. It is not. The centerpiece of the hockey world is the NHL and there we will clear the positions, that’s just a fact.

In the next year of the NHL, the Czech Republic will probably have only two steadily playing defender Radko Gudas with Filip Hronek. The national team did not even invite the National Face-Off tournament. The reason is that the Czech Republic no longer builds the NHL team. But it will take years to turn this condition.

Geffert advocates a change that this is a conceptual step that has a clear reason: “There is no individual’s decision, but the look of the sports leadership of the whole union.”

He has long been defended by the President of the Association Alois Hadamczik in the long term. In the Executive Committee, he eventually managed to enforce his view and the Extraliga did not succeed with his negative attitude. She lost.

The junior extraleague system, where players of three years start, began to apply in 2018. The goal was to concentrate in the last youth category as highest as possible and players fought for places.

“Since then, the number of young players’ departures for European competitions has become steeply. As far as North America is concerned, it is still about the same, it depends on the strength of the year.

Last season in categories under 16 and 18, 36 Czech players played in Sweden and Finland. Before the reform, ie in 2018, it was only five hockey players.

Czech players go more to Scandinavia. In Europe, the system with leagues under 15, 17 and 20 years kept only Austria with Germany. “I do not know personal reasons. But we have to take into account that there is no U18 category and the boys are not ready to move to the three -year competition,” discusses the development manager so much discussed teenagers from the Czech Republic.

“We are convinced that we will keep more children in the system, get more space and more time. Thus, the representation will have more to choose when the boys get space and time to evolve in a one -year category,” Pavel Geffert intends.

The Extraliga, however, confirms that this problem does not solve: “Crushing and a decrease in quality will come. This entails the risk of deepening the long -term problem of leaving young players abroad, which extraleague clubs often see from their own experience as premature.”

The second thing is that the introduction of the ninth grade extraleague three years ago was similarly negative. In the end, this is one of the best steps that the Union has taken in recent years, because smaller puberty players have a little longer time to compare with the problem of biological age. Someone will grow up at the age of 15, while others at the same age still look like a 12 -year -old. As a result, the first player gets more space on the ice because he is stronger and physically mature. But the second may be clever, but it is not visible immediately.

Two one -year competitions should give players an even wider space according to the view of the hockey association. “I don’t think so,” GeFfert says on whether the quality is going to be diluted. “I think the guys who were there now. The best ones will play with the elders again. But the point is that players for whom the clubs didn’t even have an alternate start. Competitions, ”the former shooter of Sparta continues.

In the current system that would want to keep the clubs, there was a big problem with the first year of the junior. Sometimes it was a natural cut, which is a classic pyramid, when only the best ones are to go to the top. But at the same time, smaller players disappeared, who physically failed to face two to three years older rivals.

Thus, the two -year junior extraleague should help again solve the problem of biological age and somewhere around 17 years. On the one hand, players should not go to the competitions in Sweden and Finland and then they would not have to go to lower hosting competitions, which are more heading for hobby hockey.

The Extraliga, however, points out that with further competitions it will grow the costs of transport, employees and ice.

“The establishment of a new category, while maintaining the categories of existing ones, will bring a disproportionate increase in the organizational and economic burden of clubs at all levels, in the order of tens of millions of CZK,” says the statement.

The Extraliga Director Martin Loukota tried to explain the general information of clubs on request: “We have earned suggestions from individual clubs in the long term.

The head coach at the academies always pays the clubs. “Some clubs will then have to deal with the expansion of the technical background of youth teams, which is associated with other one -off costs,” Loukota added.

It insists that the sum of costs by tens of millions has a real basis and detailed calculation: “It is definitely not an exaggerated number within the extra -league environment, although in our opinion the issue is about clubs of all levels.” In addition, the Extraliga warns that it will have problems to find free time slots in full halls for training other categories.

“Investing in education and education is never a waste of money. Moreover, I think the operation of 90 percent of the winter stadiums in the Czech Republic is paid from urban budgets. “I am not worried about the ice schedule, it can be organized at all. I do not want to get off the clubs at all, I just have experience in creating ice scraps on Sparta, where the Lion Prague, Nymburk basketball, concerts were held in the hall, and we put everything together. development.

The Extraliga will try to change the plan for the summer of 2026, but it does not have much chance. In the Executive Committee, she would have to trigger a new vote and convince someone who voted for a change that he sees the thing wrong. “There is not enough player base for the new category. It is not only the number of players in our country, but also their quality,” the clubs say.

The time will show the truth when the system runs for some time. If the union does not have it, it will hurt a lot, because if the natural way without prohibitions does not stop the departures to Europe and the competition will go down quality, Czech hockey will drop.

If the thing now sees the clubs now, then probably a little cost, but the Czech Republic will start to pamper more quality at home.