Milan Nový

“The game was rough then, very physical. Take Jarda Šíma, for instance, he could be really rough. But when you are trained you are careful or are one step quicker. Your body responds like you know. But you need to have a trained body first. It was not like we had our trainings for ninety minutes. I worked in the afternoon, when we had our free time. I had no free time, I didn’t relax. On Saturdays I had my individual training, on Sundays we had a training in Kladno and before that I was running in a forest because the training did not start until half past eight. And this may have been the reason why injuries evaded me.”

“But then, when I got some renown in ice hockey, I was given the best nickname by Jiří Holeček. It fitted me perfectly. Do you know what it was? Valdez is coming. This was my favourite film with Charles Bronson. He was a sniper, shot enemies from a distance. Jiří Holeček, whom I scored my first goal when I was seventeen, realised that I was an excellent sniper. But I was the only player of the national team who had some humility. When I started playing on the team, I came up to Jiří Holeček. No one else in the national team did this. I asked him that since he knew all the goalkeepers he could give me tips on where to shoot. He was meticulous and had notes on all the players about their favourite spots in the goal. He was ready for them. He shut them out, but first he studied them. I was a rookie on the national team but I could already play some hockey. And I was not ashamed to ask him for a tip.”