Mission accomplished: First ever Czech title for Plzen

Martin Straka, who was born in Plzen, returned home after his long career in NHL five years ago with one goal only – to win the domestic title with his team. And he immediately showed that he still had skills and became a true leader of his team on the ice.

However, it wasn’t so easy. Straka later became a general manager and took the control over the club. Eventually, after a long-lasting general partner contract expired, he even had to put his own money into the club to save ice-hockey in the fourth biggest city in the Czech Republic.

He succeeded and continued to build his team. He brought Marian Jelinek from Sparta, who never worked as a head coach before. Together with Milan Tichy, former NHLer, they invited first American and Canadian players to Czech league. He added other experienced players to his squad such as Jaroslav Modry or later Ondrej Kratena, and combined them with talented youngsters, who rose match by match by the side of these veterans.

In 2010, Straka could celebrate first major success – Plzen won the President trophy, but was surprisingly eliminated early in the play-offs by Liberec and did not reach the semifinals.

Next season was very specific. Plzen continued to play offensive ice-hockey and was attacking the top of the league table, when an administrative mistake was discovered and Plzen lost more than 20 points! What would have been an end of season for other teams was just a huge challenge for Marian Jelinek’s team. Plzen  fought and in the end celebrated its promotion to the preliminary round of the play-offs. Without losing those points, Plzen would have won the President trophy for the second time in a row, but after a long season, Plzen ended even earlier than year before.

After reaching semifinals for the first time in three years in 2012, Marian Jelinek decided to move on and left Plzen. Milan Razym, who was his assistant on the bench for the whole time, suddenly became a head coach, which wasn’t a big change for the team. Together with Michal Straka, brother of Martin, Jaroslav Spacek, Olympic gold winner, and Rudolf Pejchar, goalie coach, they formed a coaching team of born pilseners.

Their team once again played on the top of the league, but after a minor crisis in the end, they finished third. In the quarterfinals was Plzen on the edge of failing once again in the early stages of the play-offs, but managed an important turnover and got past Litvínov to face Slavia Prague. Plzen managed to adapt to the defensive style and beat Vladimir Ruzicka’s side to reach their first ever finals in the history of Czech Extraliga.

The final series between Plzen and Zlín was extremely even and reached the seventh decisive match, which was to be played in Zlin. Škoda took the lead twice in the second period, but Zlín twice managed to score an immediate equalizer. Jan Kovar, one of those talented youngsters, who became one of the most important players in Plzen, scored third goal and returned his team lost lead after 50 minutes of the game. However, it was him, who had to watch Filip Cech’s late strike from the penalty box, which meant a certain overtime with only 10 seconds remaining in the third period.

No fairytale could have a better ending than what happened after this. Martin Straka, who sacrificed so much for the success of his team, had to watch Vesely missing open net after his mistake first, to score a golden winner after a pass by Jan Kovar. Pure joy and delight was then to see in his face as he immediately hurried to the bench to celebrate this huge win with his brother, with whom he played the only other finals in Skoda Plzen’s history 21 years ago.

Foto: hcskoda.cz

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