The Red Wings acquired Czech defenseman and 31-year-old Radim Simek in a trade with the San Jose Sharks this past trade deadline, and the San Jose Barracuda captain continued to play in the AHL this spring, skating in 9 regular season and 8 playoff games for Grand Rapids.
According to Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff, Simek gave a Czech-language interview to iSport.cz’s Miroslav Horak which sounded some very familiar notes regarding European players suffering from minor-league fatigue:
The Detroit Red Wings wanted to keep defenseman Radim Simek in the organization. His point of view, though, was that he didn’t want to keep on riding buses.
“It is true,” Simek told Czech website iSport of the offer from the Red Wings. “It was a two-way contract with a guarantee of a lot of money, which was around the minimum amount in the NHL. But it wasn’t worth the money to me anymore.”
Last season, the Sharks were assigning him to the AHL San Jose Barracuda, where he would serve as team captain. It was the first taste of minor pro hockey in four years for Simek, who’s seen duty in 209 NHL games.
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“I didn’t see a real future there,” Simek said of the North American pro game. “I would keep flying around the farm, take the bus eight hours round trip. At the age of thirty-two, I didn’t want to go through this anymore. I have other priorities.
“My wife and I are expecting the birth of our second child in October. For me to spend time on the bus and my wife was at home with two daughters, one of them a newborn . . . so I just said no to this.”
You hear this a lot from European players who aren’t too thrilled about their experiences in the AHL.
AHL teams play a 73-game schedule, and for teams like Grand Rapids, who are five to six hours away from Chicago, Rockford and Cleveland, so there’s a fair amount of bus travel, and especially for a player like Simek, who’s used to flying everywhere (though it’s not like San Jose has an easy travel schedule, either), that’s a rough go.
Players are generally on the hook for their own transportation and housing (though AHL teams will help players find a place to live), whereas European teams pay for housing of some sort (usually an apartment), a vehicle lease (though you’re going to be driving around with a sponsor decal on your car), and even bills and groceries on occasion.
There’s usually less guaranteed money in a European contract than the NHL side of an NHL/AHL contract (though veteran players can earn up to $300-$500K), but be
On top of that, Simek, who had 5 NHL seasons to his credit, was pissed off about the Red Wings requiring him to play in the AHL playoffs instead of being allowed to head back to Czechia for the World Championship (quote from iSport):
After the regular season, general manager Petr Nedvěd wanted you on the national team before the World Championship in Prague, but the team did not let you go. That is, the Detroit Red Wings. Big disappointment?
“For me, it was a life hockey disappointment. Sometime in January, we found out that my wife was pregnant, then I was made captain in Barracuda, I thought that I would prepare as best as possible so that I could fight for the World Championship. Then a one-minute phone call about a trade to Detroit changed everything, suddenly everything was… well, you know where. A big disappointment, I really took it very hard. Then you look at the championship and think, not that I would definitely be there, but I could at least fight for the championship. Unfortunately, I probably won’t have the chance to play the championship in Prague again in my career. I really wanted the gold for the boys, and at the same time I was very envious of them, because I did my best all season to be there too. But I couldn’t.’
Those are professional hockey obligations for you, but there are always a small number of European players who really get aggravated if they’re not allowed to join the national team for Euro Hockey Tour games or World Championship games, especially if they’re playing in their home country.
That’s not a good thing or a bad thing–it’s understandable–but the Red Wings aren’t miserly for not affording one of their top-four defensemen to skip the playoffs on account of his status as having the World Championship take place in his home country.
Put bluntly, playing professional hockey is a wonderful job, but it is a job, something that takes a tremendous amount of time, energy and effort in terms of not only playing in games, but also practicing, training, traveling and preparing for on and off-ice work requirements, dealing with off-ice life and familial obligations not included.
Especially as they get older, both European and American-born players get a little tired of the North American grind, which is why you sort of see an exodus of 25-and-up players who understand that their career is going to be limited to minor league duty and call-ups.
Players will chase the money that some of the bigger-market teams will dole out to an “NHL-merited player,” players will chase the travel schedules for sure (places like Sweden and Finland are fine places to play, and the Czech and Slovak leagues have better reputations now, but Germany and Switzerland are particularly coveted for their lesser travel demands and picturesque accommodations), some players just don’t want to have to worry about a mortgage or a car payment, there are all sorts of reasons why European hockey is attractive…
But it takes a lot of guts and determination to “stick it out” at the AHL level, especially if you’re the kind of player who’s earning a guaranteed $85,000 on a league-minimum deal for the privilege of putting food on the table playing professional hockey.
There is no such thing as an easy job, even if you’re pursuing your dream job. I really admire the guys who stick out the bus rides and the grind to play in the second-best league in the world in the AHL, or the third-best(ish) in the ECHL. It ain’t easy, but they really love the game and they really love their jobs, headaches included.
