Return to paradise

The O2 Arena in Prague is a pristine, modern, NHL-quality hockey building with the Czech Republic's most impressive jumbotron, a replica of Michelangelo's David, and more than 17,000 seats. In other words, it's a huge venue with a crap atmosphere.

For the postseason, Slavia Prague decided to return to its roots, playing its home matches at the cozy, unfashionable and rather loud Zimni Stadion Eden, which was Slavia's home ice until 2004. (The Eden name comes from the former amusement park, which included a roller coaster of longer than 5 kilometers and closed in 1935, in the Vrsovice neighborhood. Locals also refer to the nearby football stadium as Eden.)

I don't know if Slavia chose this for a better home-ice advantage or for financial reasons, although I do know Slavia does have money problems and paying for Eden (where they train and hold youth team games) and the O2 Arena is not helping them. Whatever the reason, it was the right move. The atmosphere for Friday's postseason opener (attendance: just under 4,000) was brilliant. The fans in the standing section wouldn't shut up, with chants of Slavie do hoto toho! (Come on Slavia, basically) echoing throughout the joint that better resembles a practice facility than a hockey arena because, well, it's a practice facility.

Before.

After. (Or during, I guess.) These standing seats cost 50 crowns -- less than
$3 USD. Seats on the other side cost 100 crowns. There was one concession
stand, and you had to leave the area to walk to the restrooms.

Most reporters who covered the game, a 2-1 loss to Verva Litvinov, focused on the support. "The fans Friday night was a success, domestic players have less," this article says, via Google translate. I second the awkwardly-worded notion. Here are the fans singing to the players after the game:





The playoffs in the Czech Republic's Extraliga is divided into two important segments: a 10-team playoff to determine the league champion, and a four-team "play-out" -- that's what it's called, and the league even uses English -- to decide which team gets to stay in the top league. Slavia, champions four years ago, is now fighting to keep its spot in the top league. Here's how the play-out works:

• The bottom four teams in the 14-team league play each other four more times -- twice at home, twice on the road.
• The points from the regular season stay in the same. So if the last-place team finishes the regular season 3 points behind the 13th-place team, it has a 3-point gap to make up over the length of the play-out.
• The teams play their extra 12 games every Friday and Sunday for six weeks, giving each team a total of 66 games. As in the regular season, teams get 3 points for a regulation win, 2 for an overtime/shootout win, 1 for an overtime/shootout loss, and 0 for a regulation loss.
• At the end of the play-out, the three teams that have avoided last place have a secure place in the Extraliga next season.
• The last-place team must play the champion of the second division in a playoff series to determine who plays in the Extraliga next season. (The second-division winner has not won this series since 2008.)

It's rather embarrassing for a team of Slavia's stature to be in the play-out, but fortunes can change quickly in the Extraliga. Two league champions from the previous four years are in this year's bottom four. The 2011 champion finished 10th this season. And Sparta Prague, 12th last season, won the Presidential Cup this season.

Actual exchange on Facebook:
Friend: "How the heck do you see a puck on the ice with all that advertising!?!?!"
Me: "Luckily all the seats were close." Friend: "Cool, I also meant for the players ..."

Slavia rebounded from Friday's loss to win at Karlovy Vary and sits in 12th, five points above last place. There are 10 games in the play-out remaining. I'll imagine I'll attend at least one more of them.