Olomouc hockey: worst start in Czech extraliga history, 6 losses

Hockey club Olomouc has had the worst start in the history of the Czech extraliga: six defeats in a row, three of them without scoring a goal. After the latest failure, Fiala, who is in his nineteenth season at the club, spoke frankly about what is going on with the team.

In his words, the team lacked even the bare essentials in the game: “Jakub Navrátil’s one chance is not enough. You can’t win with that. We have few shots, and we hardly ever get to dangerous situations. On top of that, we are terribly vulnerable right in front of the goal: we wanted to be there five strong and still conceded.” As a result, he added, the attacking game suffers too — the players “lose heart” and lack movement and the necessary pressure.

Worse at home than away

The paradox is that the team does better away than at home. “On home ice the lads have it in the back of their minds that it’s worth nothing, and everything depends on that,” Fiala said. In previous years there was always a newcomer who broke out and pulled the team along, but this season there is no such player. About some of them, he admitted, the club is no longer sure there is anything there, while the others are “riding on the blanket that lies on us.” When there is no calm in the dressing room, uncertainty grips even a skilled player.

The stands feel this nervousness too. After the game the fans whistled the team loudly, something that has never happened before in Olomouc, but Fiala was not surprised: there are no results, the play is poor, and people prefer to stay at home rather than get nervous at the stadium. Those who did come quite logically express their displeasure.

A lack of character

The players clearly lack aggression and the will to fight — nobody starts a scuffle or does anything out of the ordinary that would push the others forward. “We have plenty of penalty minutes, but for things that don’t hurt the opponent. The players must find courage and put their heart into the game, otherwise it won’t work. But we don’t have such guys right now. We are too nice,” he noted. In his view, perhaps the club picked the wrong players.

On personnel changes, Fiala said that Olomouc has never made drastic moves and is unlikely to, “except perhaps at the coaching post” — which is what the fans want. Personally, he cares where the team is now, and he is the last person who would not want it to climb. He described his emotions simply: a person is angry — not at the players, but at the fact that what was planned isn’t working. Training goes decently, but in the match everything is different, and that is “the fault of all of us.”

On Sunday Olomouc faces a strong opponent — Pardubice. “If we play as we have been, we won’t get a grip on any team. We have to change our approach completely,” Fiala concluded, stressing that the players are fighting but must not hide behind nervousness.

Around Prague, based on reporting by sport.cz