Sparta Prague captain Jaroslav Hlinka, a veteran of European hockey both domestically and internationally, scored his team's only goal in a 1-1 tie in Bern on Wednesday. Afterwards, he spoke about the game, and the state of the series and his team in the CHL.

by Tereza Velikovska and Derek O'Brien

BERN – The oldest player on the ice at PostFinance Arena on Wednesday night was Sparta Prague captain Jaroslav Hlinka. Having turned 40 last month, he has five months on his SC Bern counterpart and former teammate Martin Pluss, who will reach that milestone in April. 

Born in Prague and a product of the Sparta youth system, Hlinka turned pro with his hometown team back in 1994. Since then, he's played most of his career with the “S” on his chest and is now the club's all-time scoring leader. However, between 2002 and 2012 he spent a significant portion of time playing abroad, most notably with the Kloten Flyers in Switzerland, Ak Bars Kazan in Russia, the Colorado Avalanche in the NHL, and Linkoping HC in Sweden.

Over the years, he has gained a wealth of experience playing international club hockey as well. Between the European Hockey League, European Champions Cup, the Spengler Cup, the European Trophy and both incarnations of the Champions Hockey League, the first game of the Quarter-Finals in Bern was his 96th in a major international club tournament. In it, he scored his team's only goal in a 1-1 tie – his 19th goal overall. 

You just finished what seemed like a pretty even game against the reigning Swiss champions. How did you see it? 

“It was a game that had the perfect atmosphere. It was a really tough, fast-paced game – very defensive from both teams, and I think the outcome probably corresponds to that.”

You scored your team's only goal, in which Petr Vrana provided a good screen. Were you trying to pick a spot, or was it just luck? 

“Basically I just threw it on goal, I wasn't aiming at anything. I didn't have much time, so it was kind of a lucky goal.”

Getting a 1-1 tie on the road is a good result, wouldn't you say? 

“It's definitely promising. Of course, we're still only halfway there, but as a result of the first game, it's good.”

In the second and third periods it seemed like they were taking some liberties on you guys. Did you feel that they were trying to provoke you? 

“No, I wouldn't say that at all – it was the same from both sides. We were also playing pretty physically – we're not going to let them push us around. There was nothing over the top out there.”

Tomas Popperle had a good game in goal, don't you think? 

“Yeah, for the amount of work he had. (laughing) No, seriously, he played well. He was steady back there the whole game.”

You've played in the Swiss league before, specifically in Kloten. Did coming back into this arena bring back any memories for you?

“It's been many years, but of course it brought back memories. Lots of things have changed here, but they still have a couple players from when I played in Switzerland, and in fact two of their players were my teammates in Kloten (Pluss and Marc Reichert) and they're still key players on the team. That was nice.”

Speaking of the Bern lineup, it has several players who have played for the Swiss national team. How do you see them them? 

“As a leading Swiss team. They play in a high-calibre league, we know well. They have they have a lot of great, experienced players, so we definitely weren't expecting this to be easy.”

As for Sparta, in the Champions League you are doing great this year, even though in the Czech league it hasn't gone so well at times.

“Well lately we haven't been playing badly in the league either – the last month or so we've gotten a lot better. I would say that in the Champions League we are playing in something special, and I hope we have not reached our ceiling.”