I was quite sad to read that Petr Nedved is done with hockey for good. Too bad...well, let's hope he knows what he's doing )) He was a great hockey player (and he still is), and a guy who would never spoil any fun. And his career - I'll use his sentence "it was no festival of fu#$@ed up time", but a long, successful, wonderful hockey journey completed at the age of 42... he is THE MAN. I am glad I was able to play alongside Meda. {"little bear", Nedved's nickname}
What bums me out about Nedved was that he never had that long streak of stability at the NHL level where he could really find a groove. His inconsistent play was part of it, but he was tossed in as a bargaining chip/spare in some of those trades. He had that stretch in New York but that wasn't a particularly good team.
4OT is obviously a big one, it was the very first video I ever downloaded from the internet, on a 28.8K dial-up modem (shout out to PulseNet). I also remember the year he got 99 points I was sitting on the couch just begging him to tip in one last point to break 100 but it just wasn't there. That was the year of that really frustrating ECF with Florida and I swear Petr was the only Pen who had any idea what he was doing because his goals were going in high while everyone else was shooting low on John Vanbiesbrouck.
My family got out of the military after the Gulf War and moved back home to Pittsburgh the summer before the 1992-93 season, I was just turning 10 years old. I discovered hockey and the Pens just won back to back cups so the atmosphere was great for it. I figured cups were automatic, and then the Islanders series happened. I didn't know it would be almost two decades before I'd see the Pens win a cup. Kevin Stevens was my favorite player, and then he was gone and Petr came in. By then I was starting to play organized hockey and he was the model for my game. We both had wicked wrist shots and I was suprisingly fast for my size so I really identified with the guy. I tucked my jersey like him and adopted 93 as my number for life. His was the first Pens jersey I ever bought, I saved my my Christmas and Birthday money and did whatever else I could, then had my Dad drive me down to Station Square and custom ordered his authentic jersey, the black one with the diagonal Pittsburgh lettering down the front. I even got a chance to meet him at the Pittsburgh Auto show one year and got him to sign it.
A friend of mine, the biggest Pens fan I know, chides me a bit about my Nedved fandom. The guy just came to the Pens right when I was finding hockey and what were ultimately the best hockey years of my life both as a fan and a player and it always just stuck with me. Although he didn't produce a ton I really, really enjoyed watching him play at Sochi even though I was certain it would be the last time I'd see the man skate. I followed his career through stats online and knew he was still doing well, but to watch him one last time on that big stage was a really wonderful way to say goodbye.
I never really sat down and wrote out the reasoning behind my total dedication to a player that only spent two years in a Pens jersey, so here it is. Had I been two years older, it would have been Kevin Stevens. Two years younger, I dunno, Stu Barnes?
Just a couple of Czechs beating up the the Capitals:
Having started as a Pens fan in the 90s and being a kid during Nedved's time in Pittsburgh, I have to say he was always one of my favorite Penguins on those teams. What made it even better was, I was probably around 11 or so, I had been waiting outside the igloo for players to come out. I'm pretty sure the Pens had lost the game, but Nedved came out and signed for the 10 of us or so that were waiting. What was awesome is that I had a binder with a page full of his cards in them, and he goes, take them all out. He signed each one.
Curious as to why a Czech hockey team would have a North American Indian as its mascot, but I digress...
Pilsen (as the only one out of the major Czech cities) was liberated by the US in the WWII - more specifically, by the "Indianhead" 2nd Infantry Division (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Infant ... _States%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;).
HC Pilsen uses their modified shoulder sleeve insignia since 2009 (after Straka bought the team) to commemorate the liberation.
)) He was a great hockey player (and he still is), and a guy who would never spoil any fun. And his career - I'll use his sentence "it was no festival of fu#$@ed up time", but a long, successful, wonderful hockey journey completed at the age of 42... he is THE MAN. I am glad I was able to play alongside Meda. {"little bear", Nedved's nickname}
