The 2020/2021 hockey season is the fourth season for HC 07 Detva in the elite league – the Tipos Extraliga. The most successful one was the previous one when the team managed to advance to the quarterfinals. Ernest Bokroš has led the team to quite a successful start to the season, and thinking about the possible advancement to the quarterfinals this year would not be so unrealistic. Detva's offensive game has been great, and their starting goaltender hasn't let them down yet either. Bokroš's idea to give Rastislav Gašpar and Jonathan Charbonneau more space has proved as a good step because both players are currently on top of the league's rankings. Jonathan Charbonneau outshined his other teammates last week, and that's why we've decided to interview him for our series!

 

Detva's had only seven players from overseas in their three seasons in the elite league, but this year the management knew what they wanted. Grayson Downing will be joining the two Canadian and two American players in Detva this week. Out of the five "foreigner" players, Jonathan Charbonneau is the one that shines more than the rest of them. It's Charbonneau's first season playing in Europe, and living in a small but picturesque town was straight up his alley. "I like it here with the small community and the beautiful background with the mountains. The views are amazing here." says the 26-year-old Canadian. Thankfully he didn't have to use GPS after his arrival to get where he needed to go because the Detva's well-known duo took him under their wings. "I had the chance to have our captain Ladislav Ščurko and assistant captain Daniel Gachulinec to welcome me here in Detva and to show me around." If you take a look at Detva's roster, it won't take you long to figure out that Charbonneau is probably spending most of his free time with his English-speaking teammates since there's no language barrier. "We try to get together at least once a week over a nice dinner at someone's apartment." says the talent from Quebec. The Slovak language is not the easiest to learn, especially if you're not a native speaker, so having to learn the basic phrases could be difficult. "It can be difficult times to times, but there are many guys here who speak English very well, so they help us out a lot with the translation. I only knew Tomas Sholl, who I had the chance to play with last year in Boise, Idaho. So I was excited when I saw that he was coming to play for Detva as well."

 

Ernest Bokroš, who has previously coached the Slovak national juniors team, has been named the head coach of Detva at the beginning of the season. "I think it is great for our program here in Detva to have a coach like Ernest Bokroš, who knows so much about the game of hockey and cares a lot. It has been great playing for him and looking forward to the rest of the season." says Charbonneau about the 61-year-old coach. Charbonneau has been extremely successful under his leadership, scoring goals in every game that he has played, and he'd want to continue with this scoring streak of his. Bokroš paired Charbonneau with Cox and Čacho, which resulted in him accumulating 5 points. "I think that with the team we have, there are so many good players that whoever I play with I think we can find a way to have a positive impact on the game. Yes, lately, with Trevor and Viliam, I think we have good chemistry on the ice and has been great playing with these two guys so far." says the Canadian about his work with the two linemates who helped him get four out of five points last week.

 

source: hokejportal.net (Marek Vaščura)

 

Last week was for Detva special because they too had to spend some time in a quarantine caused which was caused by the global pandemic of COVID-19. They have returned from the forced break, but one couldn't even see that they weren't playing in a while. "Yes it was tough to have to stop after a big win over Slovan, but I think that we came back and ready to practice right after our quarantine, and it showed over the last weekend, picking up 5 points out of 6. During the quarantine I found myself watching a lot of television especially Netflix!" Detva won the game with the home-ice advantage against HK Mikron Nové Zámky 3-2 in overtime and two days later they beat HC Košice 3-2 in regulation. Charbonneau scored the game-winning goal in both games which probably only added to the pile of things that worked out for the team that week. "It was a big weekend for us, especially coming back from the quarantine. Looking back at our weekend, I believe that we need to work more on our special units. We allowed a couple of goals on our penalty kill and did not have great results on our power play. Although our special units were struggling a little bit, I believe that our team executed our game plan five on five, which allowed us to win two of our games." 

 

Jonathan Charbonneau impressed not only the fans of Detva with his skills but others as well. The change of scenery has proved to be the right choice for this hockey season because he has accumulated nine points in six games. After he was traded last year to Idaho Steelheads, he managed to get only seven points in fifteen games. "I believe I have made the right decision, and I also think that I fit well with the style of play here in Detva." An important role in his successful start of the season could be playing a bigger size of the rink, that is the biggest difference between European hockey and American/Canadian hockey. "I think that it has helped me with my productivity, and I like the bigger hockey rink where I can use my speed to my advantage." explains Charbonneau. After the six games that he's played, he scored seven times and assisted his teammates twice, and his +/- rating is at eight. That makes him the best goalscorer and the second-best skater in the league. His team has played only six games so far, but everyone hopes that he can keep the performance at this level until the end of the base part of Extraliga. "It's something that I would like and hope to happen, but I know there are so many good players in this league that it might be difficult. I am hoping to keep going in the right direction and helping my team to win every night." The goals for this season remain the same. "My personal goal for this season, I think, is to do my best every night to give a chance to my team to win and try to make the playoffs and have a better season than last season. I believe that it would be great for Detva to make the playoffs and make it far."

 

The author: Miroslava Meličková