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Dusik about the Worlds
Dusik about the Worlds
Commentator played hockey since age of 5
Commentator Michal Dusik. Photo: Zuzana Pachova
Michal Dusik is one of very well known voices across the Czech Republic since he attended the Worlds in past years as a commentator of the Czech TV. Direct experience with the sport is always one of the most important aspects of a great commentator.
As a youngster, he was playing for Pribram and because he was born in 1971, he had plenty of possibilities to play against some of the members of the most famous generation of Czech or Czechoslovak ice hockey.
“I’ve played ice hockey since I was five. Few times I even played games against Jaromir Jagr. He was playing in higher categories with older guys quite often and it happened to me as well a couple of times. To be honest, sometimes I was even chosen to play a personal defence on him. That is something that people don’t believe me when I mention it,” Michal Dusik, who played also for example against Martin Rucinsky or Jiri Slegr, said.
Starting his active ice hockey career, he also became a spectator and watched every World Championship with a lot of interest. First World Championship he visited was the famous one in 1985, when Czechoslovakia surprised the hockey world and won the gold medals at home.
“We were just beneath the roof of the Prague Sport Arena with my father. I remember we’ve seen those last two games, where it was decided about gold for our team. I’ve also visited the Championship seven years later, but that was a completely different experience. I was there in a timekeeper box and I’ve seen the ice hockey from a new perspective,” he said.
Continue readingMichal Dusik has a long list of World Championships he attended as a commentator in his CV. During those he witnessed success and failure, but also a lot of surprising moments. “First big surprise was at the 2004 Worlds in Prague and Ostrava, where that Japanese player scored an own goal and celebrated just for a little while before realizing what just happened for real. I enjoyed that tournament a lot in total. There was a great atmosphere not only in Prague, but thanks to the Slovaks and Danes also in Ostrava, even though Denmark didn’t have a very good results that year,” he noted.
However, the interesting tournaments aren’t being played only in the Czech Republic. Especially the very first one in Canada arose a lot of doubts about its attractiveness for local fans. “The organizers also reached one great thing that year. They managed to persuade the IIHF to play games on a narrow ice; despite it looked for a long time it will be played on rinks with international size. They simply said it is not in their possibilities to expand the rinks and lately it was shown that this kind of ice hockey has its own specific spell,” Dusik picks out of his memories.
Why to play the Worlds in the Czech Republic? There is quite an easy answer to that after recent experience. “There aren’t many sadder things in ice hockey, than to play a game in front of half-empty arena. Ice Hockey should be a show for the people, entertainment that will attract fans into the arenas. I think many should watch even games like Denmark vs. Austria. The Czech Republic has a great fan base, ice hockey has a long tradition over here and it’s about the time for the Worlds to return,” Michal Dusik said.
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