Star In Any Language Hrdina’s Arrival Turned Chiefs Into Power

The interview doesn’t come as easily as the game.

Jan Hrdina is assimilating the jumble of foreign words, hopeful of striking some precision in the stream of sentences, aware that exchanges with a reporter carry the margin for error.

The goal-scoring center of the Spokane Chiefs, whose acquisition on Jan. 25 has become known as The Day The West Was Won, is conversing in one language and thinking in another.

“I still think in Czech,” said the recently turned 20-year-old from Krolove, Czech Republic. “It’s the hardest thing to know the language. You ask me question, I have to translate to Czech. I think in Czech and translate to English. It takes a long time.”

Not so long, really, but it’s a stretch for a young man in a hurry. He’s anxious to turn pro, to sign, to expand on the rewards that hockey has held out to him since childhood.

“It was hard to travel when I was young,” said Hrdina, whose effects here were immediate and wide-ranging. “Then, when I was 15 or 16, I could go outside the Czech Republic with the hockey team. I went to Finland, Sweden. I was lucky. If you weren’t an athlete, you didn’t go anywhere.”

His travels took him to Camrose, Alberta, for an under-18 international tournament, where he caught the eye of Bob Tory, then general manager of the Seattle Thunderbirds.

“I was looking for a skilled player,” Tory remembered. “Jan played with a lot of speed. He controlled the puck well and had a quick release on his shot.”

Hrdina was Tory’s selection in the ‘94 Canadian Hockey League import player draft, the year the Chiefs took another Czech, Thomas Pisa.

Picking three spots later, Seattle went for Hrdina.

Pisa has come and gone, his career a brief 21 games in which he scored one goal.

Hrdina became a 100-point scorer last year.

But after he and the club got off to a slow start this year, Seattle - looking to the future - let Hrdina go to Spokane in a trade for Martin Cerven and futures.

“The people in Spokane have been treated to an excellent team,” said Tory, now assistant general manager and player personnel director of the WHL expansion Edmonton Ice. “He makes it that much better.”

The Chiefs knew all about his skill. They expected him to improve their power play, and he has. The surprise is that he’s a defensive standout on a defensive team.

“We knew he had upside skill and would give us offense,” Chiefs coach Mike Babcock said, “but we got a guy who plays real well defensively. He wins the big faceoffs and he’s given us more depth down the middle - another guy on the point of the power play, another penalty killer, another guy to have on the ice in the last minute.”

“For whatever reason, he didn’t perform to the level of expectations (this year) in Seattle,” Chiefs general manager Tim Speltz said. “But Jan maybe didn’t see an opportunity for that team to go a long way. He’s appreciated our hockey club. He’s made an effort to show us how good he is, and how good he can be.”

How good came clear on March 9 in Tri-City, when Hrdina, with a third-period hat trick, lifted the Chiefs to an important road win.

Initially, his adjustment to Canadian hockey and a U.S. lifestyle was helped when the Thunderbirds sent him to Bellevue CC and brought in a private tutor once a week.

“He’s a smart kid,” Tory said.

Smart enough, certainly, to buy into the system here.

“Practices are so much intense, compared to Seattle,” Hrdina said. “First two weeks here the adjustment was pretty hard. I didn’t know anybody. I had to find out what coach expects of me. My teammates. Billets. Everybody.

“What impressed me most? Work ethic. I would like to get more ice time, like in Seattle, but we are the best team in North America right now. So what can I do? There are such great players. It’s the right thing.

“In Seattle, I would probably score more points in the regular season. On the other hand, I would probably get out in first round of playoffs. Spokane Chiefs have great chance to win Memorial Cup.”

Hrdina has a special interest in Spokane’s first-round playoff opponent, Portland. The Winter Hawks and Chiefs open here Friday night.

Portland last year helped write an abrupt ending on Seattle’s first round. The T-Birds were out in four games. Hrdina had only one assist.

It was a costly exit. “It didn’t help me at all in the draft,” Hrdina said. “I know what playoffs mean to NHL people. The regular season, it doesn’t mean anything.”

So Hrdina wants to make the best of this playoff experience.

His story is not about the struggling East European playing for his supper. Growing up in Kralove, a city of 100,000 an hour-and-a-half’s drive from Prague, was “beautiful,” he said.

There were skiing outings with his parents. Tennis with his dad. More than anything, there was hockey. He was into it by age 6.

It wasn’t easy, parting company with that town and his family to follow the road to the NHL.

“Obviously, my family didn’t want to lose me, but if I want to get drafted I had to leave,” he said. “We talk about every 10 days. It’s pretty expensive. They just tell me news of the Czech Republic and what’s new in the family. I tell them how I play.”

Reminded that his Spokane teammate, Dmitri Leonov, is Russian - and was overwhelmed by American abundance - Hrdina explained the economic levels.

“Here is United States,” he says, his hand at eye level. He lowers his hand. “Here is Czech Republic.” The hand drops a little lower. “And here is Russia. It was a bigger step for him (Leonov). Still, I was pretty shocked.”

His roommate, David Lemanowicz, helped. Lemanowicz, who grew up in Vancouver, speaks some Polish.

“I would understand Polish but I would not understand him, because his Polish is not that great,” Hrdina said. “My Polish is not that great, either, but if I heard regular Polish I would understand. Not his.”

He laughed. Warmly, briefly, like someone in kind of a hurry.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: THE HRDINA FILE Hometown: Krolove, Czechoslovakia. Size: 6-0, 180 Birthdate: Feb. 5, 1976 Position: Center Numbers: 29 goals, 45 assists, 4 game-winning goals, 62 penalty minutes