Michal Kempný a jeho příběh bez frází. Hokejista, na něhož nespokojení diváci lili pivo a plivali, jemuž vytýkali, že na ledě moc riskuje, vyhrál Stanley Cup.
Michal Kempný's story without platitudes. The hockey player who was drenched in beer and spat on by disgruntled fans, who was rebuked for taking too many risks on the ice, won the Stanley Cup.
@eden-squad-member very kindly did a translation of a long Czech article about Michal Kempny, which is written in the Player Tribune style about his career and how he ended up on the Capitals, and it’s well worth reading, especially since it’s like... Kempny is a DRAMA LLAMA, but in the best way. The majority of it is behind the cut. Check it out, and be sure to thank her for the translation of the original article!
Draisaitl 29.
The name and number on a Team Europe jersey, that’s what I focused on. Still, they were getting further away from me with every step. I tried to jump in the pass to Leon Draisaitl on a breakaway, but the puck flew over my reaching stick. I managed to get on my feet, take one stride, two, and… nothing. Nothing more happened in that game.
There’s probably no worse feeling for a hockey defenseman than when you’re chasing an opposing forward making a break for your goal. The powerlessness when you know you can’t catch him anymore. You just hope he’ll miss. That he won’t make the shot. That maybe you’ll manage to distract him somehow in the last second.
Draisaitl left us no chance. His slapshot was unforgiving and we just lost our second game of the 2016 World Cup in overtime. We lost it after my mistake.
For the first time in my life, I was playing 3-on-3 in overtime, which at that time was a novelty that didn’t arrive here yet from Canada. I made a nonsensical move that you mustn’t do with this few players. Instead of keeping the puck and playing it, I tried a shot from the blue line. The goalie blocked it and the rebound went directly to one of his teammates, who found a speeding Draisaitl and I couldn’t catch up to him.
You know the rest.
It wasn’t the first time I screwed something up on ice like this. Not the first and not the last. But from that moment on, I was completely broken.
And it all started so well. Right before the start of this tournament full of the best hockey players in the world, I felt like I was in a dream. The last two years of my career had been awesome. I left Kometa Brno feeling like I worked up to being one of their key players, I got a ton of self-confidence in Omsk, and I was feeling good about myself at my first world championship in Moscow 2016. We were led by Mr. Vůjtek, a coach it’s a pleasure to play for. It’s still eating me whenever I remember the quarterfinals, when we lost the chance to go forward because of an offside goal and then in the shootout. That group of guys deserved more, not the least because of the hockey we played. For me personally, this championship proved that I was moving in the right direction. After that, I had my choice of NHL offers and I was a no-doubt, first nomination pick for the World Cup in September. I was supposed to be the key defenseman for playmaking. I accepted the pressure of it. I accepted it gladly; this was exactly what I wanted, this was the role I saw myself in.
Yet, I might have let it get to me too much, felt the responsibility too strongly.
It showed in my summer training. I didn’t want to underestimate anything and I didn’t allow myself any rest. Get on ice in the morning, then to the gym, and again in the afternoon. In Kometa’s locker room, Martin Erat once told me not to overdo it, that I’m working myself too hard. Way too hard.
No, I have to. So I can be ready for the World Cup, I told him.
It’s been two years and I feel like I was a completely different person back then. I didn’t listen to my body and even when I was tired, I was pushing to the limit. You must! You must!
It only did harm.
I played well for the first two exhibition games with Russia, I wasn’t very good in Pittsburgh against the youngsters on Team North America, and once the tournament started, I suddenly felt strange.
Anyone can tell you. Your mental state plays a big role.
When I went in for my first shift in the first game against Canada, I got the puck on the blue line. All startled, I wanted to shoot it right at goal from first, and because I shot it flat, a D-man blocked the shot and immediately passed to Crosby. Who, instead of staying with me, was already two steps ahead. He got away from me.
Hello Michal, welcome to America. This is the world class.
At least he didn’t score right away. But he gave me another welcome at the end of the first period. I was going from behind the goal to start a play, thinking. Making up plays, like so many times before. I could have passed to center where my teammate was free, but it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t want to try something extra. But Crosby, who was chasing me, knows all too well where to stand to put his opponent in the worst possible position. He robbed me. One pass, another, and before I got up from the ice, a horn signaled that they scored a third goal, most likely the break point of the game.
The next game ended with that overtime and Draisaitl’s breakaway.
I made a lot of mistakes during my career. Mistakes like these two. Obvious, indisputable. But never on such a stage like at the World Cup, in games watched by the whole hockey world.
Never with the knowledge that I put too much of the responsibility for the national team’s play on myself.
Never on a team full of NHL guys whom I didn’t even really know.
To think that I introduced myself to so many of them with these whiffs…
These two blows at my self-confidence destroyed me. I ended up as 7D in the last game against USA and I didn’t even mind much that I was mostly sitting on the bench. I was falling apart so hard that I felt like I forgot how to play hockey anyway. It got to the point where I wouldn’t even leave my room when I didn’t have to. We all had our families in Toronto, the guys went to sightsee and spent their afternoons on trips and I’d rather sleep for four hours after practice than meet up with my folks, my sis and my brother-in-law. We all had single rooms, a veritable therapist office for my mind.
Just me, my regrets, and four walls.
I took my mistakes so, so hard. Even though it was completely pointless, I was still going over the things I should have done differently and tormented myself thinking about the way I screwed up the team’s chance to win and go on. I took it all personally. Even though my teammates were wonderful to me. Rather than getting angry vibes from anyone, they told me I should let it go. That it happens.
Yeah, fine, thanks guys, but still… I know I fucked up.
Besides, even if you don’t want to, you browse internet articles and discussions and you know exactly what you’re going to find. That you’re a klutz, that you’re not cut out for it. That doesn’t help.
Ondra Palát stopped by and gave me some advice on how to get over it. That there’s no time for worrying in the NHL. There’s no point in dissecting one’s mistakes when there’s another game the next day. I’m aware of that; I know it’s best to have the move-on-quickly mindset when you play hockey, but I’m not like that. In this aspect, I wasn’t even ready for the environment I suddenly found myself in. Physically I crammed the strength into myself, but to be able to settle my mind? That’s something I was only just figuring out, partly thanks to lessons like this.
Meanwhile, those few days in Toronto brought me to my knees. I was flying straight to Chicago, where I was supposed to get my first taste of the NHL, and I was asking myself what I would even be doing there.
* * *
They called us Pat and Mat.
The defensive duo Kempný – Bičánek from Kometa’s first years in the extraleague was a popular target for criticism. We were nicknamed after the klutzy duo from a children’s cartoon by a local news reporter and to the fans, disgruntled by the ragtag team’s results, we were the ones whose mistakes were easy to recognize. I did something wrong in almost every game. I held the puck too long, I wanted to come up with some great pass, and people rarely noticed that I often managed to do it. The moment I messed up, they were at my throat.
I messed up hard in this one game; I was -3 and because of that, we lost. While I was on my way to the tunnel and the locker room, people yelled obscenities at me. Nasty ones. I heard that I could never play hockey and whatnot. Some spat at me, a beer cup flew at me and people poured more at me from above.
Radim Bičánek was right behind me and he whacked one of those loudmouths with his stick.
I get why I was pissing those fans off back then. I was never the type who tried to make his job easier first and foremost. On top of that, there were many things I didn’t know back at junior age and I heaped up blunder after blunder on ice. I wanted to come out of every situation with the puck on my stick, to make a beautiful pass. I kinda had this feeling that the usual short pass or clearing the puck off the boards is also a mistake of sorts and I could do a lot more. I took risks all the time.
And, well, sometimes it didn’t work out.
It pissed off many of my teammates and coaches. I was told off because almost every move on my part was on the line between ‘neat’ and ‘trouble’. And once it fell in that second category, I was bummed about it myself. Even that evening when I was on the receiving end of a stream of curses, spit, and beer, what made me angry the most was the stuff I did. That I even gave people a reason to act like that.
That’s the way I was raised. To always start with myself.
I wasn’t a guy who would make a reputation as a rascal growing up. I was taught good manners at home and I had to think of school besides hockey. I managed to graduate too, even though it wasn’t easy. At the Civil Engineering School at home in Hodonín, I was the first person ever to have an individual study plan and I commuted from Brno, but I pulled it off thanks to tutoring during weekends. Even though many teachers found my schedule hard to stomach, of course, and made sure I knew I’d never make a living off hockey anyway.
I, on the other hand, know that I learned the most about construction at our house thanks to my dad.
I started going to a school in Hodonín because of my junior years in Skalica, Slovakia. It was over the hill, closer than Brno. That way I didn’t have to stay in a dorms; I commuted from home every day.
By the way, that’s why I was offered to represent Slovakia. A part of my mom’s family is from there, and because nobody knew about me in the Czech Republic until U20, they offered to arrange Slovak citizenship for me.
I refused. I’m Czech.
However, Skalica helped me for sure. Ten years ago, it was one of the best teams of the Slovak extraleague, which wasn’t yet in the shape it is nowadays. I had to make my way through five lines of fairly skilled guys in juniors. When I was seventeen, I even played one game on the senior team with Žiggy Pálffy.
It was only then that Kometa signed me. They played the first league [T/N: the second highest Czech league after the extraleague] at the time and signed me with the understanding that I’d start straight on the A-team. That’s how I got to play the first season in a defensive pair with Pavel Zubíček and I would probably get more games, if I hadn’t snapped back once at coach Kýhos. The next day I was wearing the black jersey for a guy out of the lineup in practice and reported to the junior team.
Since then I know that you don’t talk back to coaches, even if you’re a hundred times sure you’re right.
When Brno bought the extraleague [license], I was the only young guy who was supposed to play on the A-team. That’s when I started playing with Radim Bičánek. That’s when Pat and Mat were born.
The more people were angry about how the first seasons went, the more criticism I got personally. As if I was one of the lightning rods of their frustration. Rumors went around the city that it was nepotism and who knew why I was playing. They said that my dad must have paid the club money.
My dad has nothing to do with hockey.
He did all he could for me, drove me to practice until I had my own driver’s license, but as far as I know, he never tried to ease my way in. When someone tells me off for screwing up a pass, fine, I can take that. People are paying to see a good performance. But talk about how my spot on the roster was paid for hurt me. Especially knowing what I had to go through to even play in the extraleague at such a young age. My career has been built on giving hockey all I’ve got from the start. Even the many, many reprimands and digs about my game show that I never got anything for free.
I worked hard for it all.
During that period, it was too much sometimes. I was moving back and forth between Brno and the first league; I didn’t really belong anywhere. Even in Třebíč they yelled at me that that’s no way to play hockey; I did okay in Havlíčkův Brod, but it wasn’t something that fulfilled me. I was always thinking about getting in the top league and what direction I should even take. I had a long talk with my agent, Aleš Volek, that helped. The most important thing I took from it was that I started training a lot more. I’d sleep in the afternoon and in the evenings put in extra weight room, stairs… anything that could push me forward. In spite of that, I didn’t get a spot in Kometa for various reasons even after four years; I was only set free thanks to a loan to Slavia.
Over there I finally moved to the level I was aiming for. I got priceless experience. From Vláďa Růžička and initially from the conditioning coach Lukáš Stránský as well. During summer camp, I had lunch after his training and my hands would shake so much that I wasn’t even able to eat my soup with a spoon. I don’t know what it was like for the other guys, but to me it was a whole new level physically; we got smoked. On top of that, I was learning on ice next to the veteran Pavel Kolařík and the season turned out to be successful.
If I leave out all the crap I got from Růža.
“Don’t act like you’re Kadlec! There’s only one Kadlec!” He repeated that to me all the time. Káca was untouchable to him, he did whatever he wanted during games – something he could afford thanks to his read of the game – and I had to hear about him every time I tried to be creative.
“I’m not acting like I’m Kadlec; I’m Kempný,” I replied.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Růža drilled me in almost every practice; he made me watch video and noticed stuff in my play that I never even thought about before. He showed me how to be better thanks to the tiniest details.
And he yelled at me, of course. There were plenty of moments when I would have his face a few centimeters from mine and he’d shout and splutter. I felt like he always chose someone on the team to pick on. For a while, it was me. It all came to head when the puck jumped my stick at a bad moment during practice. Banality. But Růža started screaming at me, and pretty obscenely too.
“Fu-- off already,” I hissed through my teeth. “Shut up and leave me alone.”
We were far from each other, he probably didn’t hear me, but it gave the guys standing around me a laugh.
And most importantly, I didn’t shit my pants because of Růža. Quite the opposite; I showed him every day that I wanted it. I admit I didn’t like his methods sometimes, but it’s true that he can use them to push everyone to the max. He made me grow for sure, anchored me as a hockey player. He showed me what direction to take and where such a road could lead if I abide by the principles of his understanding of hockey. After years of flopping around without direction, I suddenly knew who I was, what I could do and what more I could learn.
Moreover, I broke up with my then-girlfriend, whom I’d been dating through my teens; and as a young single guy in Prague, I also gained self-esteem I didn’t have until then. I started to live my life the way I wanted.
It all came together at the right time. If it wasn’t for Slavia, I could be driving a delivery van right now. It was only there everything started for real. I returned to Kometa the summer before my 23rd birthday as a different person. People couldn’t comprehend how I could have changed so much, and I too felt like I was starting from scratch.
What followed were two perfect years during which I made the national team for the first time and reached the goal I set for myself – I transferred abroad. I refused good money that Brno was offering me for a contract extension and left for Omsk. Not for a fortune: compared to other players’ salary, mine was closer to the minimum, but to me it was a chance to move forward. I wasn’t in want of money; I don’t need much and made a good living even as a young guy in Brno. I mainly wanted to advance my hockey. So after a year, when I could have signed in Russia for a much bigger amount, I was already looking forward. To another goal I saw in front of me.
The NHL.
* * *
I noticed Joel Quenneville in the lobby of a hotel in Pittsburgh, where we were playing our friendly games before the World Cup. At that time, he was an assistant coach to the Canadian national team, but more importantly the coach of the Chicago Blackhawks.
The coach of the team I signed a contract with a few weeks ago.
I thought it would be impolite not to greet him when I saw him. So I went and introduced myself to him; I considered it basic courtesy.
I approached him as much as my poor English allowed. But he was pretty suspicious of me.
Mainly because he had no idea who I was.
That’s the impression I got from him even later when he was coaching me on a team. He stomped on me a lot. I got it the first year. I understood I was new to America, I popped up from nowhere, had never been drafted. I thought he was trying to see how much I could endure and if I had the will to work hard when things weren’t going well. Sometimes I didn’t play ten games in a row, but I stomached it.
Not in my second season.
Before it started, the coach told me he was planning to give me more opportunity. And I got that indeed.
For exactly seven games.
After the last one in St. Louis, he told me I wouldn’t be playing the next time. Not because I did something wrong or made a mistake, apparently I played okay… Someone else was just going to get a chance the next time.
From that moment on, it went up and down. I would play a game, then not, until I was scratched for 13 games in a row. For a month starting in mid-November, I just skated around in practice like a tool, slowing down and sweating on a bike in the gym to stay in shape.
I entered a phase when I took no joy in hockey. There was no reason to when the games weren’t my business. I was resigned; I felt I was about as important to the team as the last bottle of water left on the boards. Not because of the guys; they were great. Even Johnny Toews cheered me up, that I’m a great defenseman and that I should be patient, that I’m probably just not what the coach is looking for. That’s encouraging, but it doesn’t help in the least when everyone is getting ready for a game in the evening and you’re off to do some extra skating.
When you miss the rush we all play hockey for.
“Your game was okay, but you’re not playing tonight.” I was starting to get nightmares about that line.
I spent that long break at the end of autumn asking myself what I was even doing there. I was losing faith in my abilities. I went from being in demand and getting offers from plenty of NHL teams after my season in Russia to the position of someone who was superfluous. I was losing everything that made me who I was as a hockey player. Even if I was living the NHL life, it was as if I didn’t belong in it. I didn’t deserve it. Not the way I saw it.
Isn’t this my ceiling? What am I even striving for; maybe I just hit the limit of my abilities…
That crossed my mind too.
I had my girlfriend with me, she was my rock, but still I kept asking myself whether there was a point in staying in America when I was only skating from board to board. Why was I so far from my family and friends? For this?
Despite all that was going through my head and in spite of feeling completely useless, I never slacked off in practice. That’s how it’s been my whole life. If I was told to do something ten times, I did eleven. Or twelve. Just for the feeling of it.
But my play suffered. Right from the first moment in Chicago, I stopped playing the hockey that got me in the NHL. I got to a point where the most important thing was not to mess up, because I was always on the edge. You screw up – someone else will replace you. My self-confidence was toast, I didn’t dare do anything. Everyone who ever did any sport knows this.
Despite that, I never – even when I was at my worst – instructed my agent to start arranging for a transfer to Europe and find me a job there. We only asked for a trade within the NHL before Christmas so I could find out if anyone at all was still interested in me.
And Washington was. The trade was in the works for three months, until the teams reached an agreement shortly before the trade deadline in February.
Today I know that if that change didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be in the NHL anymore.
Generally, my trade was presented as a situation where Chicago had no interest in me and Washington grabbed the opportunity to add an experienced defenseman to the team before playoffs. But the truth is that right after I arrived, I was told that they’ve been monitoring me for a long time and they wanted a defenseman exactly like me.
That caught me off-guard. Me? But I spent a year and a half either sitting in the stands or playing chickenshit. And they told me I was a great skater and a good playmaker, which is what they needed. The head coach informed me that he planned to have me dress for every game and that I would never be a healthy scratch. In short, that he was betting on me.
I was floored and at the same time, such words warmed me and encouraged me.
Moreover, nothing changed about them even when I wasn’t doing so well in the beginning. I let two goals past me right in the first game; I let the player get away from me. But I played the same portion of minutes the next day. And the next one, all the while next to John Carlson, our key defenseman.
Three weeks after the trade, I was on the ice for three goals scored against us in Philadelphia, one was a direct giveaway from me, and the next morning Todd Reirden, the coach of the defensemen, came to me.
“How was yesterday?” he asked.
“Sucked…”
“Huh, but I already forgot about it, you’re playing again tomorrow. I don’t care that you made some mistakes. I like what you bring to the team.”
This is what I’ve been waiting for!
For the first time, someone really believed in me in the NHL. For the first time, a coach stopped by to ask me how I was feeling. For the first time, he leaned over the bench during a game to ask how I was and if I wanted to get back on ice. I never experienced that in Chicago. I couldn’t even imagine that I would be able to knock on the coach’s door there and talk about anything.
The environment I found in Washington was such that we were all equal and everyone talked to everyone else. For me personally, Todd was a blessing.
He’s going to be the head coach now, but last season he was in charge of the defensemen. I could come to him at any time and talk about hockey stuff, but also about things that weren’t related to hockey at all. When we analyzed games, he didn’t even want to discuss what went wrong, he always turned his evaluation to the elements he liked. Even when some goal was my fault during playoffs, he was cool with it. He brought my confidence back and let me play the way I felt I should. Suddenly I had the freedom I needed for my hockey again. Everything was strict in Chicago; I wasn’t supposed to go in the right corner since I was a left side defenseman, and if I ended up in there somehow, my first thought had to be about how to get back to my side as soon as possible. I repeated to myself what I was and wasn’t allowed to do before every game, what the coach focused on. It was stifling. And here? Michal, play however you can…
No coach is happy when you help your opponent score, but now I know that I can try stuff again. I know the system of the team and I have to stick to it, but I can do whatever I want in that framework. And that’s exactly the right thing for me. Here, it’s suddenly me once more. I’m myself again and it’s Todd who gets the most credit for that. He’s been making it clear that he wants to work with me right from the start, so the name Kempný, unknown until now, can become a brand in the league.
I can’t wait to see what the next four years I signed a contract for bring.
* * *
I got an assist in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final the likes of I haven’t managed in a long time. I got the puck in the circle, faked a shot and found a completely free Lars Eller in front of an empty net. Pure hockey beauty, as you can see here.
And you know what?
In the first moment, I was thinking that I pulled risky crap again. For a second, I wasn’t even happy about the beautiful pass that helped us even the score.
It’s the fault of all the crap I’ve been getting my whole life for this kind of plays that sometimes didn’t work out.
So many times I got kicked for that.
So many times I felt down for screwing it up for the others.
So many times I saw my teammates stomp off angrily because they didn’t get a simple pass from me.
So many times I lost the puck unnecessarily, the crowd started whistling and booing, the other guys scored a goal and on top of that, the coaches yelled at me on the bench.
So many times I got to perch in the stands as punishment.
Even so, I still wanted to be the one making up plays the next time. Not a defenseman who just clears the puck to be done with it. It was still worth all the moments when I’d want to disappear somewhere.
I’m glad I never gave this style up completely. After all, there’s something good and bad to every player, they just need to find balance. Yes, I used to do a lot of stupid stuff on the ice, but it also worked many times and resulted in beautiful plays. The dumb plays made me the hockey player I am. The things I can think up during a game are what sets me apart from others and it’s on each team’s coaches to find the players whose personality fits them. Washington chose me exactly because of the stuff I can do.
Maybe at the right time. I feel my hockey evolution is slower compared to many other guys. Some come to the NHL at eighteen and can play in it with ease. I can’t imagine anything that could pique a scout’s interest enough to even be drafted to the NHL when I was eighteen.
When I see how they work with youths in America or Sweden these days, how confident and constructive players they thoughtfully raise, I’m in awe. They let them make mistakes… Maybe it’s different in our country too by now, but I always got scratched for mistakes. I learned by myself; I had to watch others to learn how to get by so I could stay myself without driving the coaches crazy. In senior teams, I listened to older players, valued their advice and gleaned from them what I thought was suitable for me. It’s one of the reasons why I’m still evolving year after year. I am gaining experience and I know better and better how to react in specific situations.
I know that I don’t always have to try a sweet pass to the second blue line and deke four times behind my own net with a guy breathing down my neck. That there’s no need to try to be exceptional all the time, but that it’s more important to show it at the right time. And that clearing the puck out of my own zone or shooting it off the boards is often the best thing I can do. Sometimes I simply pitchfork it to be done with it. The speed in the NHL forces you to think like that. Everyone had been telling me that ‘there’s beauty in simplicity’ for so long that I finally understood it.
On the other hand, if had I been thinking like that when I was twenty, if I had played according to it in Brno or Omsk, I never would have learned anything extra. I would be average.
Now I’m in the position where I tell younger kids the same thing that experienced guys used to tell me. Don’t make up dumb plays. But at the same time, deep down, I’m rooting for them and see myself in them.
I was the same kind of dumbass. But that’s the only reason I am where I am now.
There’s no ‘Pat’ or ‘Mat’ engraved on the Stanley Cup. It says: Michal Kempný.
—Michal Kempný, the first Czech undrafted Stanley Cup champion