by Marj Roden
No story about Milan could be complete without mentioning the fact that in his second year with the Raiders, he was not the lone Czech on the team anymore. In fact, he was the "senior" one, with the addition of Michal Sivek.
On the outside, one might look at these two personality-wise and think they're as compatable as oil and water, but once a person really knonws the situation, one would see that these two are about like peanut butter and jam - a perfect combination on and off the ice.
For those of you who haven't already figured this one out yet, Milan is a rather reserved person. Michal, on the other skate, is an extravert. In other words, the polar opposite of Milan in many ways. For one thing, catching a glimpse of Michal laughing or smiling in public was much more common than it was with Milan. In fact, it wasn't until Michal's arrival that I actually saw Milan laugh.
It was during rhe end of a practice, and Milan was trying to show Michal an exercise he apparently uses for practicing his shot. Very meticulously, in only the way that Milan Kraft could do it, were seven pucks lined up along the blue line, evenly spaced. He shot them all off rhythmically and steadily, with Michal obediently watching them all go into the empty net.
With the last puck, the assisiant coach Larry Bernard came skating along and swiped it from Milan playfully. Milan did not look overly amused, but he did chase his coach around until he got the puck back. Michal, during this little chase scene, was grinning broadly, as were the others presnt who could see the humour in the situation.
Once Milan got the puck back, he again lined up the seven pucks along the blue line to have Michal try his hand at this oh-so-important exercise. Now, to add a little bit information to those of you out there in cyberspace, I'll give a brief description of the scene...
The net Milan was shooting at was facing the Zambonie Room. The Zambonie Room was underneath the new Jumbotron television screen that had just been installed that summer. The Jumbotron has a wire mesh across it to prevent it from getting damaged if a puck happens to hit it. So, knowing what we know about that, let's get back to Michal's rendition of the exercise.
Michal must be a hell of a poker player. The reason I say that is, even when he is up to mischief, if he wants to keep a straight face, he does. So, with this straight face, he slowly and methodically hit the Jumbotron with all seven pucks.
At first, Milan was rather upset by this. After all, in his mind, this was a serious exercise. However, by the time puck number seven had bounced off the Jumbotron, he was in stitches laughing.
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