Jagg gives NHL wings. Conversation with Latvian hockey team striker Eduard Tralmak / Day

The season ended this time with the regular tournament, but two weeks later you are still in the Czech Republic. Why don’t you go home?

This stage is strange, because for about ten years I have not ended the season. Usually in America only in April or May came to get away from the club. And last season we played here. As soon as the season ended, I started thinking about what to do. The apartment here was another month to April, here are the perfect training opportunities because we have free ice. Several teammates also come to train, make ordinary shot exercises and then play. Jagg comes every day, he doesn’t like just skating, if we play, then seriously. In order not to look for ice in Latvia, I realized that I would stay here. Now the weather is getting better, so I go to Prague. I enjoy a little life with relaxing and less training. In the team camp, everything will start again.

Jaromir Jaggs You are a good friend in the Czech Republic who plays professional hockey at the age of 53. He will continue his career next season or will he end?

After each season he thinks – play or not play. Now the situation has changed because the club has new owners and everyone will decide whether he has to play or not. Hockey is the biggest goal of his life, that’s all – work, love, hobby, family. For him, life is subordinated to always be in the hall. I think he just can’t go so easily. Jaggs still wants to play and will do it if possible. He is still the owner, but now he owns smaller parts of the club. He can still do it, but the partners have to adjust to Jagra’s style of play, as it is quite different from nowadays. He still has a beautiful hockey where the puck is pulled back, look and start the attack. You need to attract players who can adapt.

Last season, when you go to Kladno, the start of you was not successful in terms of points. I remember, said that Jagg was not very happy about your performance. The relationship was slightly tense?

The beginning was very difficult. It all started with the fact that I arrived unprepared, but it wasn’t because I was not training. It was the first or second week since the surgeon allowed to train after surgery. When I went to the Kladno, I was not in the best form, I had not skated for two months a day. In hockey, physical preparation is quite different, without ice lessons it is impossible to train fully. The first ten games of the lungs did not work, all the time was fatigue, I couldn’t do a lot. I think Jagg began to doubt his choice. After that, however, I was back in confidence, and the gate began to fall inside. Among the first ten and the next ten games, I grew up as a completely different player. Jagg was not the only one who told me it, and Tomas Plekanec also told me that in the first ten games he couldn’t understand what I was doing on the pitch, but in the next ten I was one of the best. Even at some point in the early stages, Jags did not greet me, but now we can laugh at it. We are so friends that he could also ask if he had doubts about me at first.

You have said that you will not pay attention to your statistics, but this season cannot be overlooked. You have already finished last season as the team’s top scorer and was the best goal scorer in the majority in the entire league, but this season has reached the next level. Interest in you is definitely growing.

It’s only logical that the club’s interest this season was very high. However, I signed a contract with another Czech team Karlovy Vary at an early season Energie. If I hadn’t done it, I could all the time weighing where I wanted to go and play. On the one hand, maybe I didn’t think I would show myself at such a high level. This contract was good enough, even better than my performance at the start of the season. The introduction was not the best, I played the first ten games with American Michael Halts, who was supposed to be the first center, and Czech Martin Prohazk. In the test games, we each collected two, three points, but at the start of the regular season we didn’t show anything at all. The only thing where the points came was the majority. If there were no majority, I would skate without points. We did not develop chemistry, though the coaches were still hoping to play. After a dozen matches, I was not among the top 30 players in the league. Offers began to appear in the stage when my game finally left. The first teams knew their budget and simply threw an offer in my direction. There was no big team because it was waiting for NHL players at first. Only then did they look at the second plan I was like, they didn’t know that I would succeed.

It was a tree with two ends, but I would like to emphasize that perhaps because I signed the contract, I had the season. After signing the contract, I did not feel the disappearance of the stress, but in some way I was convinced. I started to think less and play more. I felt faith in myself to prove something in each game. The seasons as this one was, it is very difficult to achieve.