Hockey in the Czech Republic. Ticket scams, Kalousek applauds rivals, and Slovaks also admire Voracek's commenting.
The Ice Hockey Championship, which is taking place this year in Prague and Ostrava, confirms how much Czechs love this sport. Both arenas are essentially sold out in advance, and sideline traders have tried to exploit the fans' passion for their favorite sport by attempting to sell counterfeit tickets. Another sign of interest in the top tournament is the effort of famous personalities to express their opinions about the national sport. And that even in cases where we wouldn't expect sincere interest.
The Ice Hockey World Championship has been held in the independent Czech Republic three times in its history. Besides the current year, it has also been held in 2004 and 2015. However, if we were to include the championships hosted back in the times of former Czechoslovakia, we would become, along with Sweden, the most frequent host of this championship (11 hosting times). Miroslav Kalousek also reminisced about past championships.
"Recollections from the Hockey World Championship in Prague 2015. When the Finns scored a goal, I clapped. I'm used to clapping for the opponent in tennis. Surprisingly, I survived that, but my then-press secretary Ondřej Jakob decided that I should probably not go to hockey games anymore. So I support our team from home by the TV. And occasionally, I clap for the opponent,"
The former finance minister wrote about his experiences on the X network.
Scammers need nothing to forge tickets, human carelessness is enough
He appeared as a regular deputy at the last championship. He was known for his provocative behaviour during his political career and among hockey fans he could pay for it, as he himself stated. However, much more controversy than Kalousek's joke caused the issue of counterfeiting tickets from the first days of the championship.
For some matches, the organizers offered tickets at a special reduced price. They called the project "family games", when tickets for unattractive matches are sold from 190 crowns. This applies, for example, to some selected matches of the biggest outside of the Great Britain championship. In total, there are five matches, in which home hockey players or our neighbors from Slovakia will not compete.
The price of tickets for play off matches is in a completely different category. Their price starts at 3,980 CZK for the quarterfinals and climbs up to 12,980 for the finals and the bronze match. The price of tickets for the group stages then ranged from 1,180 CZK to 4,880 CZK. Even prices significantly exceeding ticket prices for the domestic extraleague did not limit record spectator interest and the first blemish on the spectator-successful championship began to be formed by resellers with fake tickets.
According to the latest findings, several hundred fans have already reported the fraud to the Police of the Czech Republic. Fraudsters usually do not use any sophisticated methods. They just sell a paper ticket with a unique code to several people , and those who want to use it as second and further in line are not able to get to the ice rink in Prague or in Ostrava.
In several cases, fraudsters then sold fake QR codes, which upon closer examination turned out to be QR codes of online stores or even in one case it was a code linking to a dental clinic.
"According to the terms and conditions, it is not possible to resell the ticket in any way. There is no official tool for that. We have been drawing attention to this from the beginning of the sale. The awareness, even in cooperation with the Czech Republic Police, was quite large. Unfortunately, we can't do anything about it now, we can't react to it. We can't let people into the hall, which is sold out,"
said Miloš Židík, the spokesperson for the organizing team, for Seznamzpravy.cz.
Commentator Voráček impressed also in Slovakia
A more positive surprise for the fans was born at the Czech television commentator's stand. The former captain of the national team and top scorer of the overseas NHL, Jakub Voráček, sat down here as a co-commentator / expert. The former sportsman surprised fans with his precise insight into hockey tactics, which he likes to share with viewers.
He also caught attention with his specific sense of humor, making fun of himself and his ability to correctly turn on the microphone, or enlivens the broadcasting with unique comments about baking Swiss in a baking dish. In his case, hockey rivalry was also put aside by competitors from Slovakia and even local media praise the new commentator for his performances off the ice.
Sources: twitter.com, seznamzpravy.cz, betarena.cz, sprotnet.sme.cz, author's article
