Ocelari Trinec won its third straight Czech Extraliga title on Thursday, defeating Sparta Prague 2-1 in Game 6 of the finals before a sell-out crowd of 17,220 at O2 Arena in the nation’s capital.

Three times in the finals, Trinec took the series lead and twice Sparta answered, but the eventual champion bucked that trend in the last game, thanks to two goals 95 seconds apart by Vladimir Dravecky and Vladimir Svacina – the latter on a penalty shot – and 26 saves from surprise starting netminder Marek Mazanec.

“I'm glad we ended it today because Game 7 is always a crapshoot,” said Svacina. “I don't think anyone wanted to play a seventh game, even though it would have meant celebrating at home, but it’s still great here at O2 Arena.” 

Mazanec, the 30-year-old former Nashville Predator, played in 34 of Trinec’s 56 regular-season games but head coach Vaclav Varada had gone with Ondrej Kacetl throughout the playoffs.

“I’m mostly relieved that I didn’t mess it up and we can celebrate now,” Mazanec told hcocelari.cz after his first start in more than a month. “Ondrej had a hell of a run and I don’t think the goals in Game 5 were his fault, but that’s what the coach decided. If it didn’t work out, we’d have had another shot at home, but thankfully it worked out.”

Marin Ruzicka, 36, has been a member of all four of Trinec’s titles. He is the club’s all-time leader in goals with 217 and second all-time in points with 483. He continued to produce offensively this season with a team-leading 48 points in the regular season and nine more in the playoffs. Andrej Nastrasil, 31, was second in regular-season points with 35 and first in playoff points with 11. Nastrasil had previously played one season in Trinec but his career had mostly been played abroad, including NHL stops with the Detroit Red Wings and Carolina Hurricanes.

Other notable players include defencemen Tomas Kundratek and David Musil, who have represented Czechia internationally on many occasions, Slovak internationals Tomas Marcinko, Milos Roman, Marko Dano and Marek Marincin, as well as Aron Chmielewski, who is now in Tychy, Poland (just 80 km from Trinec) playing for the host team at the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group B.  

Trinec finished second in the regular-season standings and then swept Vitkovice Ostrava and BK Mlada Boleslav in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, respectively, to get back to the finals. Sparta was the third-place team in the regular season. 

It’s the fourth title overall for Trinec, who first won it all in 2010/11. In 2018/19 and 2020/21, both times Trinec beat Kometa Brno in the finals. There were no Extraliga playoffs in 2019/20 due to the pandemic, and no champion was crowned.

Kladno stays

Another byproduct of the pandemic was the fact that the Extraliga played with 15 teams this past season, due to no team being relegated from the previous season. Next season, the league will return to its usual number of 14. Berani Zlin, the national champion in 2004 and 2014, was automatically relegated after finishing 15th. 

The 14th place team, Jaromir Jagr-led Rytiri Kladno, played second-tier Chance Liga winner Dukla Jihlava in a best-of-seven promotion-relegation series to determine the remaining team. Kladno won the series in six games to maintain its place in the top league. 

“We knew it would be difficult, but we did not know how to approach it,” Jagr told hokej.cz. “We went 40 days without any games (after the end of the regular season), but I think we practiced quite well. Even so, we needed some luck. Except for Game 4, every game was decided in the third period.”

As for whether he plans to return for a 35th professional season as a player, the 50-year-old co-owner of the Kladno club said: “I really don’t know. I’ll stay in shape but I have to see what kind of players we have an if there will be any room for me. I think we can build a solid roster.”