Tomáš Plekanec

Don’t wait. That’s the most important order I’ve ever received from a coach. It’s simple and clear, yet so hard to understand.

Why would I chase someone on the ice when I could just wait for my moment? Coach Claude Julien gave me hell the first time I stood on the blue line and let our opponents start their offense without any resistance from me as a defenseman.

Like what the hell was I doing? I should be in there making their lives harder, checking and hitting them.

Ever since I was 18, I played in the Extraleague, the Czech Republic’s highest competition, and I had regular invitations to junior national teams. So when I left for Montreal in 2002, I was very confident. I felt like I knew what hockey was about. It was taken for granted back then that Czechs were the smart ones and Canadians were the dumb ones. I thought I’d be able to play it smart and easy just like in Kladno.

I had my reasons for this. I simply trusted in my abilities and my style of game. And I thought I’d have a small advantage thanks to the classic Czech craftiness. I never thought they wouldn’t let me play on the A-team. I imagined I’d show them a thing or two and they’d immediately get me to the NHL.

I was pretty naive.

I had like four points in the preseason, which is not bad, and I could already see myself in the Canadiens jersey. Instead, I got sent to the farm team. There, I started figuring out how the system really worked. I also learned that Montreal is a team that takes players from its farm very rarely.

Flying to Canada, I thought that once you sign a contract, you get your chance. That it’s a fair fight. Two or three open spots and if you play better than anyone else, you get it. I had no idea how it really worked. For example, a certain player might not belong in the lineup, but if the management wants to trade him they keep him on the team instead of you to improve his value.

OK, they’re just testing me, I thought. I’ll play around 10 games, score some points, and go back up. I soon found out that it was not going to be so easy.

I began to sober up from such fantasies right after I arrived in Hamilton with my teammate Jožko Balej. We stayed at an old hotel called Ramada Inn. I’ll remember the name until today. Once we were accommodated we went out for dinner and we realized that it was not going to be fun here because of the atmosphere of the city. Complaining became our bread and butter. Complaining about anything.

However, it wasn’t that bad from a hockey perspective. I had 46 points, which was a pretty solid performance in the AHL before the lockout. It used to be a brutal league full of cross-checks and slashing. The experience I had from our Extraleague definitely helped. I was toughened by all the clashes with František Kučera or Pavel Šrek. I’ve always been a nice guy, but only off the ice. On the ice, I didn’t care who these people were. I was so cocky. Too cocky. Whenever I see someone do the things I used to do, it makes me cringe. It’s just too much. You can’t possibly tell a player to go f*** himself. Maybe they didn’t even hear me, but I know I wouldn’t do it again.

But thanks to that attitude, I survived in the AHL.