He spoke to Danny Bate about his career, looking back on his early years, his time as a professional sportsman, and his favourite memories. I have the immense privilege to be joined here in the studio by the Dominator himself, Mr. Thank you so much for coming in today, it's truly appreciated.
The main reason why you have kindly come here today is that you do have a, shall we say, significant birthday coming up this month. This is a chance to reflect on the many events of your career. To start off with, I'd like to take you back to your early career, when you were first setting out in the s and 80s in Czechoslovakia.
What was that like? And how might the journey to becoming a professional hockey player be different today? I was a kid and I was doing what I love to do: playing sport, playing hockey. I come from a small city, Pardubice, with one-hundred thousand people, and hockey was by far the number-one sport over there. So, I was excited to be a young kid and a young hockey player.
Some players or some goalies, they start off as forwards or defencemen, then they become the goalies. I was a goalie since practice number one. All my life was my friends at school and hockey. I watched every game on TV, when the Czech national team played against Finland or Sweden, and especially against the Russian or rather Soviet Union team, which was the best team in the world. I was so excited. Some of them made it to the NHL, some to the national team.
So we had a great team when I was aged seven, eight, nine, through to fifteen. I played with great players. I was lucky. Later on, I became a professional player in Czechoslovakia and played for the national team.
