The 3rd most successful team in Slovak Extraliga, have been never ever in relegation problems. Dukla Trencin is a home city of few famous players. Marian Gaborik, Pavol Demitra or Miroslav Satan grew up here. Couple oldier players and former national players (Lubomir Sekeras, Branislav Janos) came back to help Trencin survive this season.
Slovak federation decided to put out from top league for upcoming season 10/11 Slovakia U20, 11th and 12th team will be relegated straight to 1st division and 10th team will play against 1st division top team playoff for upcoming season.
There are four teams very equal at the bottom of the table at the moment. Spisska Nova Ves, Trencin, Zvolen and Liptovsky Mikulas. It happaned not once in Slovak history that the teams with better tradition and financial circumstances saved their top league position. There had been changed system for getting points - 2 for win after OT, but 0 points for loss after OT. All this changes were because of speculations at the end of the season. This time we are back with one point added after loss in OT. (This is opening another discussion about last part of Slovak Extraliga regular season and this is the most propable reason why Zigmund Palffy will leave this competition after three years of playing hockey for home city).
My advice is to be careful, from this moment in Slovak Extraliga. Too over/underrated odds or too big diferences between teams in table are not that important as they might be. Teams from 1st to 7th position are ''save'' and nobody is going to cry for couple lost points.
And one more extra decision of Slovak ice-hockey federation. Slovak Extraliga will continue withouth break through the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Will it give more space for speculation, while rest of the people will be watching and talking only about Slovak national team in Vancouver ?
Sun 17.1.2010 14:50 (Last modified Sun 17.1.2010 14:54)