Locally: Pair of Spokane Chiefs players added to Czech National team’s Under-20 camp
Two Spokane Chiefs, goalie Lukáš Pařík and defenseman prospect David Jiříček, who played with the Czech Republic national senior team last month, have been invited to the Czech national team’s under-20 camp for the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championship.
The camp started Saturday and will run through this coming Sunday when the roster will be cut from 42 players to 28 before departing for Canada. The world junior will run Christmas Day in Edmonton and Red Deer, Alberta, through Jan. 5, 2021.
The Czechs are in Group B with Russia, the United States, Sweden and Austria.
Pařík appeared in two games for the Czechs during the 2020 IIHF World Junior, his participation limited by an injury.
The Los Angeles Kings’ prospect, a third-round selection in 2019, played 32 games for the Chiefs during his rookie season in 2019-20 with a 2.73 GAA and .917 save percentage. In nine games on loan this season with a team in the Czech2 league, he has a 3.19 GAA and .895 save percentage.
Jiříček, who turned 17 a week ago, is one of 14 defensemen vying for a spot. Selected by the Chiefs in the 2020 CHL Import Draft, he has appeared in 13 games this season with a team in the highest rated Czech junior league, recording a goal and an assist.
Pařík and Jiříček played with the Czech Senior team that finished second behind Russia in the Karjala Cup tournament in Helsinki, Finland. At age 16 at the time, Jiříček was the youngest player to ever play for the Czech men’s national team.
Baseball
The Spokane Indians’ Zero Waste Campaign in 2019, which the Northwest League team said increased general recycling by 29%, earned the team the Washington State Recycling Association Recycler of the Year in the Business Generator category.
The Indians’ release announcing the award said the team placed 60 zero waste stations around Avista Stadium, which “diverted 12 tons of compostable materials from the waste stream, which equates to 28% of total waste.”
The compostable materials were processed into soil-building compost, a portion of which was returned to Avista Stadium and used in flower beds.
College scene
Rachel Burns, whose four-year career helped usher in the decade, is the most decorated of the 12 players selected to the Whitworth women’s and men’s Tennis All-Decade Team for the period 2010-11 to 2019-20.
Burns arrived on campus in 2008 from Mark Morris HS in Longview, Washington, and by the time she left in 2011 was a four-time All-Northwest Conference first-team choice, one of just six in NWC history.
Her senior year she was named the 2011 NWC Player of the Year after helping the Pirates earn a third straight conference championship during her career and also received the NCAA West Region Arthur Ashe Sportsmanship Award from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. As a junior in 2010, she was named NWC Sportswoman of the Year.
The only one of the six men and six women with an area connection is Michael Shelton (2007-10) from Burbank, Wash., who started his collegiate career with two years at Community Colleges of Spokane. He was a two-time All-NWC first-team selection and played No. 1 singles and No. 1 doubles both his years at Whitworth.
Others on the Tennis All-Decade Team:
Men: Drew Brigham (2013-16), Daniel Redfern (2011-12), Cameron Williams (2010-13), Colin Zalewski (2008-11), Blake Miller (2013-16).
Women: Alli Marshall (2009-12), Bella Hoyos (2014-17), Saryn Mooney (2012-15), Taylor Peña (2013-15), Erica Lee (2017-20).
Letters of intent
Idaho women’s track & field: Freshman: Belen Garcia Arias, hurdler, Spain.
Miscellany
Tom Wistrcill, commissioner of the Big Sky Conference the last two years, has received a two-year contract extension from the league’s President’s Council, which touted his successes.
The release announcing the extension during the week in which Wistrcill reached his two-year anniversary, read in part he “has led the Big Sky to unprecedented heights in student-athlete programming and advocacy, competitive success, revenue generation, media exposure, and brand development.”
• The primary entrance for Idaho student-athletes, coaches and staff to the ASUI-Kibbie Activity Center in Moscow now contains a statement to the values of Vandals athletics.
Signed first by university president Scott Green and director of athletics Terry Gawlik, the new Values Wall puts into words what it means to be a Vandal: Excellence, inclusivity, integrity, passion, perseverance and respect, the words surrounding the traditional Vandal logo, and will include signatures from student-athletes, coaches and staff across all sports.
“These are the things that we have dedicated as our core values. And I have to give our president credit. It was his idea to have this wall,” Gawlik said. “Our goal is to have every student-athlete sign their name to the wall … when everyone returns in January.”