Summary of the Czech Extraliga regular season 2010/2011; part I

TOPIC OF THE 2010/2011 CZECH EXTRALIGA REGULAR SEASON: Why were Plzeň, Mladá Boleslav and Kladno penalized by point reductions?

The system of players registration is too complicated, boniness, obsolete and bureaucratic; forenamed clubs realized it on their own. The problem is, that few Plzeň’s (Přikryl, Frolo), Kladno’s (Kotrla) and Mladá Boleslav’s (Marušák, Divíšek and Fabuš) players weren’t registered properly regarding the APK rules.

But it is not so simple: In Czech Extraliga you as a player need to have three valid documents: professional contract, registration card and a player card. Although the players own valid contracts, the clubs didn’t manage all the three-round registration process and their players were still registered in their previous clubs.

In addition a part of the guilt also was on the side of APK, because the APK confirmed the rosters of all clubs, although there were badly registered players, but it changed nothing in the club penalizations, only a discussion about new registration system exigency started.
Not everyone already understands where the pith of the problem is now, three months after the affair, it even looks like the lawyers don’t understand the APK (Association of Czech ice-hockey professional clubs) rules either, because each one has a different opinion and offers different storefront of the rules.

Regardless of it, Mladá Boleslav was penalized by a 22 point reduction and in the league standings has fallen to the last (14th) position, Plzeň has forfeited 19 points and were moved to the 12th position. The count of points withdrawn depends on the number of games in which badly registered players has started. 

The only team that got better despite of points reduction was the unrivalled last Extraliga club – Kladno. Although they miss 6 points, they jumped up for one spot behind Mladá Boleslav.

Plzeň and Mladá Boleslav lodged an appeal, Kladno naturally didn’t and the appeals were after obstructions rejected. Plzeň and Ml. Boleslav has cogitated a possibility of civil court process, but until now they haven’t done any steps what could indicate this.

Except of this, a Plzeň player Tomáš Vlasák told journalists, that Šulc (the league chef) is a untrustworthily person and he was penalized a 300,000CZK (app. 12,300€) fine for the league name profaning, for which another storm was started – the Czech newspapers, fans and players defended Vlasák and his free opinion warrant, but nothing was changed, Vlasák had to pay the fine.

Another two clubs was in suspect of the aberrancy later, but in the cases of Zlín and Třinec was enact that the offence is not on the club’s side and they weren’t penalized.

The club of Mladá Boleslav was under league commission investigation in one more case: The club didn’t avouch all their active debts before the season and it was balancing on the precipice of immediate Extraliga relegation, but the league commission finally enact of the fine for Mladá Boleslav in an amount of 3 000 000CZK (app. 122,700€).

How the clubs settled with the penalization?
The only club that equalized well with point reduction is HC Plzeň 1929. Although the club fell down to the 12th position, they didn’t stop with good performances on the ice, on the contrary they put on the pace and reached the play-offs preliminary round where they will meet Litvínov. In dependence on tonight’ last round result will be decided if they will start the preliminary round in the home arena or away in Litvínov.
Mladá Boleslav(33 points) has not woken up yet and if they won’t beat Pardubice on their ground this evening, they will finish the regular season on the last spot behind the last penalized team Kladno (35p.).

For both teams it means participation in the play-down season phase, where the four last teams will fight for avoidance of the 4-wins relegation round against the 1.liga’s play-off winner in 12 games.

The only Mladá Boleslav’s goal for the play-down games is to jump past Kladno, Kladno wants to defend their penult position. When we are talking about the play-down phase, another two qualified teams are Brno (68p.) and Sparta Prague (54), but both teams had a big lead over Mladá Boleslav and Kladno and they should not be periled by the relegation round.

 

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