(source: TASR)
THE PITTSBURGH Penguins have won the Stanley Cup, one of the most precious trophies in ice hockey, for the third time in its history on June 13, in a decisive seventh game against the Detroit Redwings.
Miroslav Šatan, who played in the colours of the Penguins, is the fifth Slovak ice hockey player on a team capturing the Stanley Cup, the SITA newswire reported.
Šatan is the first Slovak to win both a Stanley Cup and a World Championship.
He received his first ice hockey success in 1994 when he became Slovakia’s champion in the colours of Dukla Trenčín.
In 2002, he won again with the Slovak national team at the World Championship .
Four Slovaks have won the Stanley Cup before. The legendary Slovak native Stan Mikita took home the Stanley Cup in 1961 playing with the Chicago Blackhawks; in 2003 Jiří Bicek won with New Jersey Devils; a year later Martin Cibák was champion with the Tampa Bay Lightning and last year Tomáš Kopecký and the Detroit Redwings were victorious. The Redwings made it to the finals this year as well but were defeated by the Penguins 2:1 in the decisive seventh match of the series.
The saddest man on the Detroit Redwings was probably another Slovak, Marian Hossa, who last year left Pittsburgh for Detroit in the hope of winning the Stanley Cup after the Redwings defeated the Penguins in last year’s final.
