All-Star Game Latest Chapter in Slovaks’ Long Friendship at LinesMaker

All-Star Game Latest Chapter in Slovaks’ Long Friendship

KANATA, Ont. — In the Team Chara locker room at Sco­tia­bank Place dur­ing the 2012 Tim Hor­tons NHL All-Star Game, three long­time friends cracked jokes in their native lan­guage that no one else in the room could under­stand. This was the Slo­vak sec­tion of Team Chara, a row of stalls occu­pied by three of the game’s best players.

With Bru­ins defense­man Zdeno Chara serv­ing as cap­tain and name­sake for the win­ning team in the 12–9 con­test, Slo­va­kia was set to fig­ure promi­nently in the game. But a three-goal MVP per­for­mance from coun­try­man Mar­ian Gaborik and three-point night from fel­low Slo­vak Mar­ian Hossa made it a momen­tous event in the country’s sports his­tory. That these three play­ers all hail from Trencin, a west­ern Slo­va­kian town of roughly 56,000 inhab­i­tants, is impres­sive enough.

But from the same street?

“We lived on the same street, 20 sec­onds from each other,” said Hossa, who set up two of Gaborik’s goals before scor­ing in the third period. “We are all really close. We played together since we are young, so we’ve known each other a long time.”

Pod Brezi­nou, the Trencin street located mere min­utes from the banks of the Vah River, has turned Slo­va­kia into a hockey hotbed. The Stan­ley Cup first vis­ited in the sum­mer of 2010 when Hossa brought the tro­phy to town after the Black­hawks’ vic­tory over Philadel­phia in the Final. The fol­low­ing sum­mer, Lord Stan­ley made a return trip to Trencin after Chara’s Boston Bru­ins won the Cup.

Each of the three Slo­vak All-Stars got their start in the sport as teenagers with the home­town Dukla Trencin junior team. By the time Gaborik began his career with the local squad, Chara and Hossa were start­ing their NHL careers. The two played three years together with the Ottawa Sen­a­tors, win­ning the Pres­i­dents’ Tro­phy in the 2002-03 sea­son along­side team cap­tain Daniel Alfreds­son, who cap­tained the oppos­ing All-Star team Sun­day. When Alfreds­son scored two quick goals, his for­mer Slo­vak team­mates qui­etly rooted for him from the oppos­ing bench.

“Alfie is such a classy guy and obvi­ously a big icon in Ottawa and Swe­den,” Chara said. “So of course we were pulling for him [as a] long­time teammate.”

Despite his best efforts, Alfreds­son wasn’t able to get that elu­sive third goal. Instead, it was Chara who notched the game-winner thanks to a nifty pass from Gaborik, who capped off a four-point night with the helper.

“That was my first shot, I think, of the game. It’s nice to score at All-Star, no doubt,” Chara said. “I was sur­prised I was open and I just put it in the net. I was more focused on stay­ing back, not being some­thing I’m not.”

Chara may have scored the even­tual win­ner, but it was Gaborik who was the star of stars. Unlike pre­vi­ous years, a vehi­cle wasn’t awarded to this year’s All-Star Game MVP. But that didn’t stop the two Mar­i­ans from dis­cussing who might get the car.

“We were actu­ally jok­ing,” Hossa said. “Ask­ing if [Gaborik was] going to ship it to Slo­va­kia or keep it here.”

While the rest of the room couldn’t under­stand the Slo­va­kian ban­ter com­ing from the cor­ner of the Team Chara locker room, it was a remark­able expe­ri­ence for three long­time friends.

“Guys from the same coun­try, same town, and same street play­ing at the All-Star Game,” Hossa said. “What else could you ask for?”

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