A wonderful story. After all, just three years ago, it didn’t look like a bright career for Blanár. On the contrary. As a teenager, he gave up sports completely for a few months. “It was difficult for me in Vítkovice, I had such a difficult period. I didn’t feel good in the dressing room or on the ice. And mainly because of the concussion, I stopped playing hockey for about half a year,” recalled the 18-year-old talent.
However, during the long break, I started to miss hockey. “I wanted to go back, but I didn’t have much to choose from,” he recounted. He headed to Sweden, where he only played in the third highest youth competition. “Half the people don’t even know this league,” smiled Blanár.
The decision paid off for him anyway. “Hockey caught me completely again. I’m glad I went to Sweden,” he explained. A year later, he moved up a level and this year he is already active in Jönköping in an elite junior competition. For HV71, he also registered three starts among adults. “It opened my eyes a bit. A great experience that will also help me in physically demanding matches in the 20s,” Blanár suspects.
Its progress is extremely fast. In the past, the 195-centimeter-tall fullback did not play a single match for the youth national team, but this season, the invitations from Patrik Augusta began to pour in. “Why wasn’t I in the national team even before? I think that a big shift has occurred in me only recently. I can feel it in myself. I rose to the top and gradually the coaches started to notice me,” thought Blanár.
In any case, he did not expect to be nominated for the championship. “It certainly surprised me, considering that I only recently got into the junior national team. When I saw the nomination, I just smiled. And I immediately called my parents,” he recounted.
However, he is not sure of a place on the roster yet. One of the nine defenders in the selection is sharp. And since the coach of Augusta reached for five left-handers, Blanár will most likely fight for a place with Benjamin’s Jakub Vaněček or the assertive Matyáš Man. “Whoever wants more will get a place in the end. It’s certainly a great motivation. Everyone wants to play in the tournament and I’ll leave everything on the ice to get among the selected eight,” promised the shapely defender.
An even bigger surprise than the nomination for the championship for many fans was when Blanár was selected by Boston in the 100th place in the NHL draft in the summer. But the Czech youth himself was not surprised. “I talked to about 20 teams, so I knew I was going to be drafted. I didn’t know that Boston was going to get me, but I talked to them twice,” he explained.
And he clarified one more “mystery”, namely the unconventional form of his first name Vashek. “My parents probably wanted me to have it a little differently than the others. And because I was born in America, where ‘sh’ is pronounced as ‘š’, my parents did it this way,” explained Blanár.
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