07.09.2017 - Matěj Mayer

The beginning of the new season is coming

Preparatory period is slowly ending and everything is ready for the start of the season 2017-18. Sparta played 11 preseason games and won five times. „We played unbalanced in the preseason but I believe that everything will be all right at the beginning of the first season game,“ says head coach Jiří Kalous. The new season is going to start on Friday, September 8th, in Tipsport Arena in Pardubice.

The preseason wasn´t the best but the coaching stuff HC Sparta Prague stays calm. „The number of player changes was big in the summer. We are trying to find optimal composition of our lineup. It is the main goal. It will show at the beginning of the competition if we did it,“ says one of the two head coaches Jiří Kalous. „The key thing is a good start to the season. We must have patience and work hard. We aren´t among the favorites in Extraliga but we are going to the season with fact that we want to win,“ thinks Michal Broš, sports manager.

Sparta always has the highest goals but we want to take gradual steps. My dream is to win the title and players certainly have the same dream. So we would like to reach the highest position,“ says Kalous. Prague club has completely new goalkeepers. Tomáš Pöpperle and Filip Novotný left the team and to the Sparta came David Honzík from Karlovy Vary and Sami Aittokallio, Finnish goalie. „They both have tremendous potential, we trust them. Goalkeepers have our full confidence. Everything will show the time and hard games. We are working hard to cooperation between goalies with defenders,“ says 52 year old coach.

SUMMER CHANGES IN SPARTA

ADDITIONS DEPARTURES
Sami Aittokallio (G, Kärpät Oulu – FIN)
David Honzík (G, HC Energie Karlovy Vary) Filip Novotný (G, HC Energie Karlovy Vary)
Tomáš Dvořák (D, HC Energie Karlovy Vary) Vladimír Eminger (D)
Tomáš Pavelka (D, HC Verva Litvínov) Jan Buchtele (F, Slovan Bratislava – KHL)
Petr Zámorský (D, Örebro HK – SWE) Lukáš Cingel (F, Mountfield Hradec Králové)
Alexander Reichenberg (F, Storhamar – NOR) Brian Ihnačák (F)
Robert Říčka (F, PSG Zlín) Martin Procházka (F, BK Mladá Boleslav)
Vinny Saponari (Frisk Asker – NOR) Michal Řepík (F, HC Fribourg-Gottéron (SUI) )

Goalkeeper number one is already determined. „Sami is now at the number one position but of course we also want create the space for David. Sami Aittokallio is Finnish so the communication between him and defenders is in English,“ thinks Jiří Kalous. His team will not play in Champions League this season. „It´s a shame we don´t play in Champions League. On the other hand is true that we have a little more time to prepare and we can only concentrate on Extraliga. This can be a tiny advantage.“

Extraliga season 2017-18 is going to start on Friday, September 8th. Of the first five games, Sparta is going to play just one game on the home ice – the second with Jihlava (September 10th). The first game is going to take place in Pardubice, then going to be Sparta´s opponents Vítkovice (September 12th), Plzeň (September 17th) and Mountfield Hradec Králové (September 24th).

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