HK Krnov forward Pavel Michalek, a third-tier Czech league team, was forced into quite a strange situation on Saturday night. During their game against SK Kravina, Michalek was forced into net without pads so his team didn’t face league sanctions. How did Michalek end up playing goal? Krnov goalie Roman Šlupina started the game but was ejected after he dropped his gloves and tried to get into a fight. Following Kravina’s 8th goal in the third period, backup goalie Antonín Mužík got into a skirmish and was ejected. This left Krnov without any goalies.
Normally you would think that this would mean that they would just forfeit the rest of the game and move on. But according to the Puck Daddy Blog, “game officials said that the team would be hit with significant fines if it did not complete the game, to the point where it became obvious they’d be better off finding an alternative in goal.” There were 11 minutes left in the game and lucky for Michalek, his opponents saw how ridiculous it was that they had to continue and took it easy on him and threw soft shots. It’s pretty ridiculous that they forced Krnov to continue and even more ridiculous that they wouldn’t let him wear full goalie gear to play in net.
