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Krejci says Czechs ‘didn’t even know what we were doing’ at Olympics

KrejciCzeGetty

On the same day Czech national team head coach Alois Hadamczik announced he was stepping down, David Krejci shed light as to why Hadamczik was out.

“I thought we were all over the place,” Krejci said, per MetroWest Daily News. “We didn’t even know what we were doing at some points.”

The Czechs were a study in dysfunction during the Olympics. They slogged through a listless opening round, winning just one in three tries amidst questionable player selection (see here), illness (see here and here) and a curious distribution of ice time (see here).

Starting goalie Ondrej Pavelec was scratched for a tournament-opening loss to Sweden, then proceeded to start the remaining games -- before he was hooked in a quarterfinal loss to the U.S. During the tourney, the Globe and Mail wrote that some of the Czech players were “apparently not even on speaking terms” with Hadamczik, who had his coaching acumen come under fire:

You don’t have to dig very deep to find those that question [Hadamczik’s] methods in general, including going back to a seventh place finish at the worlds last year in Stockholm, where players took issue with many of the decisions being made.

He seemed uncertain who to use in shootouts, for one thing, and deferred to veteran players during key games for strategic decisions.

[Jan] Hejda made more pointed comments when he was left off the Olympic team last month, coming out in the Czech press and declaring that Hadamczik barely used a discernible system at all and that the team would have to win on its own.

It’s worth noting that, when asked about dissension among the ranks, veteran defenseman Tomas Kaberle said all was well in the Czech dressing room.

“I don’t know who’s writing about it,” he said. “We’re on the same page. Everybody’s here to do one thing, to compete hard, and this is the best tournament in the world, and you want to finish first.

“There’s no fights in the dressing room, or anything like that.”