Sparta Prague's Tomas Netik had a great group stage and that has led into a good start in the Czech Extraliga as well. He spoke about his season so far, and looks ahead to the CHL Round of 32 against Karpat Oulu.
by Lucie Muzikova and Luke Fisher
Tomas Netik led Sparta Prague in points through the group stage of this season’s Champions Hockey League with six goals in four games.
Netik was also the league’s CRAMO Top Scorer for much of the group stage, and still leads the competition in goals alone. We caught up with him follow his team’s progression to the next round, and with the Czech Extraliga season also underway.
“Our main goal was to make it to the playoffs and we did. We played two good games with Farjestad, which we lost at the end of, so the race for first spot was really close. However, we met our main goal, so it's okay for us,” said the 34-year-old, reflecting on the group stage. “For Czech clubs it's great that four of us made it through to the next round and will continue in the competition because the prestige of this tournament is still going up.”
As a founding member of the CHL, Sparta Prague have been present since the inaugural season – and enthusiasm to do well comes from all over, including the very top.
“The CHL is already greatly covered by our media and also our owner Petr Briza is one of the co-founders of the league, so it is automatically for us really prestigious,” affirms Netik. “All over Europe there are also young players given the chance to show their teams what they can do, and how they are the future. For everyone here, it is important to play as hard as we can in the CHL, and not just to go through the motions. We all buy into this philosophy and really appreciate these great games.”
Last year Netik notched only five points in his eight CHL matches, and has already surpassed that total. In the Czech league he managed 22 points (8+14) last time around over 41 games, something he is glad to have turned around already this season.
“For sure, I'm grateful that I was able to help my team with goals, because last year I was extremely unproductive and really unhappy about it!” admitted the Prague native. “I hope it will continue this way. Last season was a real extreme that I hadn’t experienced before, but I just kept believing in myself that I could score more goals again. I don’t think I changed much from last season – still training and preparing in the same way – but perhaps I’ve been hungrier for goals this season or a little more accurate in practice.”
Netik joined Sparta at the beginning of last season from Slovan Bratislava in the KHL, and joined his new team in time to face Karpat Oulu in the CHL's Round of 16. This year, he and his teammates will face them again in the Round of 32.
“They have a great team and these are going to be two top quality games ahead of us,” said Netik of Karpat, and how tough this team is to play against. “On the other hand, it really doesn’t matter who you face because, with maybe one or two exceptions, everyone still playing at this stage of the tournament are good teams, and so it depends on us and how we approach the game.”
“I’m not sure we can talk about ‘revenge’ yet, because it’s not like soccer where we play a team for the 20th time or something, but we would like to ‘repay’ Karpat for knocking us out last year for sure!” Netik concluded.