The forward of the HC Slovan A team, who is fulfilling his dream of hockey for the third season, humbly says that he is especially grateful to his parents. Marek Sloboda is 22 years old and has a hockey career ahead of him, but he is also thinking about the case that he would have to quit due to injury and start studying at a university. We talked to him about his beginnings, hockey idols and fulfilled dreams.
Marek doesn't currently have a hockey role model, but he tries to learn something from each of his teammates. "When I was little, I had two main role models – Miro Laž and Richard Kapuš. Even when I used to go to the old Slovan stadium with my father for matches, those were my two favorites."
Marek's family has literally lived hockey since he was a little boy. His younger brother, who is now 6 years old and also trains at Slovan, has not escaped him. "My brother has different training conditions than I used to have. Training methods have changed, players spend more time on the ice. He enjoys it very much, I try to support him as much as possible, give him advice. He has already started playing matches and is doing well, he has already scored some goals." His parents create the best possible conditions for his brothers and support them. "My mother provides us with the facilities, cooks, washes, encourages us. She always reads all the hockey articles and when I come home tired from training and don't even want to hear about hockey, she tells me everything she has learned," laughs Marek. "I am very grateful to both parents, they have supported me from the beginning."
As mentioned earlier, Marek's goal in hockey was to play for Slovan. "Slovan is my heart's desire, it was always my biggest dream to play for the A-team, and I'm glad that it came true. The fact that Slovan was in the KHL was just a nice bonus for me," says Marek and continues. "I'm not saying that I wouldn't want to make it to the NHL, everyone wants to, but since I was a kid, I've had a dream about Slovan, and I've fulfilled that. Now I'd like to achieve some success with Slovan, preferably this season. We're currently first in the standings, we're doing quite well, so I believe that it will continue like that. And of course, one day I'd like to wear our national team jersey."
"I was about 4 years old when I was walking around the stadium with my father and he took me inside. There was a training session going on there, so he lifted me up to see. I really liked it and wanted to try it. My parents bought me equipment, at the time for about a month's salary, and they gave me the condition that I had to play for at least a year and then decide whether I wanted to continue or not. But I fell in love with it right from the start, I didn't have to make a decision," recalls Marek Sloboda about his very first contact with hockey.From the beginning, he dreamed of Slovan, but during his career he also played for other clubs. HOBA in Bratislava's Dúbravka taught him a lot, as did Motor České Budějovice. "I felt that if I wanted to move forward, I wouldn't get the same conditions in the Slovak juniors as they offered me there. For the first time, I "sniffed" at senior hockey, which would have been very difficult in Slovan at that time, juniors in the KHL didn't get space. I considered České Budějovice as a kind of intermediate stage and it helped me," Marek says, continuing what was a turning point in his career. "When I finished playing for the school team, I didn't play for about two seasons because I had various injuries, I had surgery, I had a broken collarbone twice, problems with my groin... My father and I said in the ambulance that I would get together and do everything to make sure I came back. When I recovered, I started working hard, my father took a lot of care of me, he went to individual training with me in the Czech Republic. I went to try it out at Slovan in the youth team, there were about 50 of us there in summer training. The coach chose me as one of the two youngsters, recommended me to the youth team, which I had never been in before, and from then on I never missed a single match, until I was twenty, and then everything gradually went that way."
Marek Sloboda is fulfilling his childhood dreams with his time at Slovan. "I got to Slovan, I played in the KHL, in a packed squad with many foreign players, and also opponents I used to watch on TV, and suddenly I was on the same ice with them. I also consider the World U20 Hockey Championship in Canada, in Toronto and Montreal, to be a significant moment in my hockey career. There was an amazing atmosphere there and I really enjoyed it."
Marek doesn't have much free time, he mainly devotes himself to hockey and training, and as part of his hockey training he likes to go boxing. "When I have time off, I try to regenerate and spend my time with my family and girlfriend. Now I also focus on school, which helps me mentally switch off from hockey. In the summer, I go to play tennis with a friend for recreation."
During this year's Gala Evening of Culture and Sports in Dúbravka, where he started playing hockey, he was awarded an Honorable Mention. "The HOBA Club in Dúbravka helped me a lot when I wasn't at Slovan. Sometimes it's good to take a step back so you can take two steps forward. At HOBA, they gave me the space to train and return to Slovan. I appreciate it."
