Pardubice Have Two Goals Disallowed by Video Review, Fall to Hradec Králové in Extraliga Opener

The opening round of the Czech Tipsport Extraliga brought together fierce rivals Pardubice and Hradec Králové — and the match turned into a controversy over officiating, as referees twice waved off home-side goals following video review. In the end, the visitors walked away with an unexpected win.

The game started well for the guests: as early as the 13th minute, Mountfield's Danish defenseman Anders Koch opened the scoring. Pardubice pushed to level things up, and the packed Enteria Arena erupted with joy in the 17th minute when captain Lukáš Sedlák buried a rebound. But the visitors challenged the call — officials spotted a slight skate-on-skate contact between Sedlák and goaltender Škorvánek just before the shot. In the referees' view, that contact prevented the goalie from reacting in time, and the goal was disallowed.

A Second Disallowed Goal Within Two Minutes

Just 128 seconds later, Pardubice fans were celebrating again — and again prematurely. This time Sedlák, stationed in front of the net, used his hand to knock down an airborne puck with a visible motion before it ever touched his stick again. The referees headed back to the monitor. "Video review confirmed a deliberate direction of the puck with the hand. The goal does not count," announced head referee Matěj Sikora over the arena speakers.

Pardubice coach Filip Pešán could only smile wryly, while Sedlák himself argued heatedly with the officials that there had been nothing deliberate about it. "I was just standing in front of the net and the puck hit me — maybe I made some kind of hand motion. If I'd actually knocked it into the net with my hand... I don't know. You get a bit annoyed, but there's nothing you can do about it," the captain said after the game.

Still, the referees' calls were correct. Unlike a puck deflected off a skate — which can only be disallowed for a clear kicking motion — a goal scored with any part of the body, including the hand, only requires a deliberate motion to be waved off. It doesn't matter that Sedlák was simply trying to knock the puck onto his stick rather than direct it across the goal line. Coach Pešán himself agreed: "Both situations were judged correctly based on what we saw. It's unfortunate the goals didn't count, of course — at that point we could have turned the game in our favor. But sometimes the puck just doesn't bounce the way you want it to."

An Unexpected Home Defeat

Pardubice did eventually get their goal — early in the second period Roman Červenka found the net, and this time the fans, who had been mockingly chanting "video, video," got to celebrate for real: the goal stood. But in the end, it was precisely those two disallowed goals that the home side missed. Hradec Králové punished their rivals for defensive lapses, weathered a heavy late-game push from the favorites, and unexpectedly left the eastern Bohemian derby with all three points.

"Our opponents have real quality, and they beat us with exactly the tools we knew they had. They punished us, and they were very efficient doing it," admitted the Pardubice coach. Captain Sedlák couldn't explain the defensive breakdowns either: "Before the third period, we talked about how Hradec would play on counterattacks. And they broke away from us three times and scored three goals. We simply handed them the win," he lamented.

Source: sport.cz