Eurolanche

The one, who showed us the locker room

Marek Svatos has died. I couldn’t believe those words on Sunday morning. I expected something entirely different. A return to hockey? As a player? As a coach? No, death certainly didn’t cross my mind. My thoughts were immediately with his wife and two little kids.

Photos of Marek with his close family regularly appeared on social media. He taught his kids to play hockey, so they could follow in his footsteps one day. They certainly inherited their father’s talent, which would dominate even in today’s NHL if his career wasn’t marred by injuries.

Eurolanche will organize a big, four-day meeting in the Tatra Mountains in Slovakia in August 2017. We’ll celebrate the fan club’s 10^th anniversary. Among others, we also wanted to invite Marek, even if only for a few hours. His name is still on the list of invited special guests. We wanted to give him his invitation personally in Denver in January 2017 during Eurolanche Invasion IX.

Marek came into the life of the Eurolanche fan club during Invasion I. Eurolanche’s first ever trip overseas came at the tail-end of 2008. We didn’t know what to expect. Peter Budaj promised us game-tickets in advance. No one would expected that the participating trio (two Slovaks and one Czech) would get to look behind the scenes of a professional team playing in the NHL.

>>> Photo gallery to commemorate the memory of Marek Svatos <<<

I’m not sure after which game it was. We attended six of them. After the final whistle, we waited for the Avalanche players. Thanks to special tickets, we’ve been in places people normally can’t even look at.

Then Marek came. Since he was in a good mood as the Avalanche won and put on a solid performance, he invited us into the Avs’ locker room. We were stunned. We quickly followed him and were living out our dreams. A few days ago, we were regular fans from Europe. Due to time differences, we only watched games at night. People considered us fools. But it was on this day that we went from our rooms to a locker room of an NHL team.

Marek showed us everything. All the rooms. Every single corner. Maybe we should’ve even been there and see all those things. We didn’t think about that at the time. At all. We were walking around with our mouths agape and were photographing each and every corner of this big maze of hallways and rooms.

We were more relaxed during our lunch with Peter and Marek a few days afterwards. This serves as further proof of his attitude towards us, regular fans from the other side of the globe.

The Košice native became part of the fan club’s history forever. His friendliness and goodwill stood out. He became a true friend of Eurolanche.

We re-lived similar moments during Eurolanche Invasion II and Invasion III. Then Marek left the organization. We rooted for him, even if he wasn’t a player of our favorite team. Sadly, injuries had a significant impact on his career.

The last time I met Marek was in 2013. I still remember the day as if it was yesterday. Slovan Bratislava of the KHL held a big press conference to announce Marek’s arrival. For a few weeks, Marek’s hockey fame came back. We met a hotel after he signed his contract. We talked and did our last interview. Marek didn’t hesitate to sign photos for a competition for fan club members.

After our last meeting, Marek went to the east of Slovakia where it all began. He signed with his boyhood club and won the Slovak title. He hung up his skates afterwards.

We believed that he’ll return to hockey someday – regardless of his position.

That day will never come. Our heads aren’t only filled by memories of his quick feet and lethal shot. Right now, there are questions. A lot of them. But the biggest question remains “Why?”.

Long live his memory.

>>> Photo gallery to commemorate the memory of Marek Svatos <<< 

This article was originally written by David Puchovsky and translated by Michal Hezely

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