ANTOŠ’S RAZOR: Welcome to the playoffs, the judges are to blame for everything! Extraliga must determine its path

They are the biggest villains on the ice who can’t do it at all and influence the games. We leave aside the performances of the players, the team managements and bring everything down to the man in pinstripes.

As we remain calm in the regular season and have gotten used to not cursing at the referee, with the start of the playoffs we are surprised that everyone will give it their all. When a fan climbs up to the plexiglass (as is the case in Boleslav, for example), he sees a poke and profanity in every substitution. Anything that knocks the opponent off. Suddenly, everything is just at stake, which affects everyone. That’s why it’s surprising that some people are still surprised that matches are now brimming with emotion. That’s what the playoffs are about! About emotions, twists and tough interventions that we call for.

The only thing I’m missing – and I’ve been saying this for a long time – is determining the path that the extra league (now the club owners who run it) wants to take. Do we want to play fast-paced hockey in the regular season, where all the hooks and tucks are whistled, and then come the playoffs, where we let it go and only whistle the biggest fouls? I ask myself what we actually want from the extra league.

I’m surprised how surprised everyone is now. They are surprised that in the playoffs players are yelling at each other and going at each other. That now the actors of the match are working at 150 percent, as they said under communism. And that maximum commitment and attitude also includes bad decisions by the referees.

I’m not excusing them at all, because some of them deserve to be vetoed when their mistakes significantly affect games and an entire playoff series. I understand that teams suffer a lot from such grievances and carry over the grievances to the next matches. All the more, I would expect to hear from the management of the extra league what path we will take in the future.

I still have to stop at the interview of Flynn from Liberec after Sunday’s match in Pilsen, which was interrupted by a vulgar fan of West Bohemia. I would also like all viewers to be correct, but they are cold, where it hurts, even during interviews. I know this is going to sound terrible, but this is just part of hockey.

Everywhere you can find a person who behaves like a moron, and now it happened in Pilsen. But it cannot be said that it does not happen elsewhere. On the one hand, I’m sorry, but on the other hand, I enjoy it. The fans are having a terrible time in the hockey playoffs and are completely beside themselves. On Sunday in Pilsen, a visiting player tripped and fell on the way to the goalpost, but the stands roared for a foul to be whistled.

And even the case of Flynn’s interview shows that the extra league should think about where it wants to go. Do we want this, or do we prefer just sitting and applauding spectators? I don’t really like it when a fan hangs over a player doing an interview and yells obscenities at him.

On the other hand; i don’t hear clubs now vehemently exhorting their spectators to behave themselves like they used to. So either we start behaving in order to improve it, or we will conduct it as it is now and then be “surprised” when such a brat flies into the broadcast and starts yelling at Flynn. Spectator emotions do belong to hockey, but we must clearly define what else is permissible is, and what is already over the edge.