From left: Michal Jozef Tkac and Lukas Novak. (source: Sportnet)
When asked for a photo together, they spontaneously grab each other by the shoulders. One says, "We are immigrants," much to the laughter of both.
At first glance around the locker room, nothing would suggest that there are three foreigners in the under 18 Slovak national ice-hockey team, which is based in the Piešťany ice-hockey arena. No one here even sees them that way.
Based on the names on the stalls, you would have a hard time identifying them. Only their places of birth on their CVs reveals these foreigners: Patryk Zubek, Michal Jozef Tkac and Lukas Novak.
A Pole and two from overseas
Patryk Zubek is a Pole hailing from Nowy Targ. "My father always told me that if I wanted to make a living from hockey, I couldn't play in Poland because the bar was lower. I wanted to play abroad," the young defender told Sportnet.
He was taken in by the Michal Handzuš Hockey School in Banská Bystrica; in April he obtained a Slovak passport and a few days later he was already skating at the U18 World Championships in Finland, where the Slovak team made it to the semifinals.
For Tkac and Novak, it is a different story. Both were born in North America, but their parents are Slovaks. They believe that they will make progress hockey-wise in their parents' native land.
