Rohac making an impact

From The Daily News of Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2007. . . .

Andrew Milne was 21 years of age when he headed abroad to play a little
hockey. And he well remembers the fear and uncertainty that accompanied him.
“I remember when I played in England,” Milne, an assistant coach with the
WHL’s Kamloops Blazers, is saying after Monday’s practice at Interior
Savings Centre. “No language barrier. I’m 21 years old. I had just put my
bags down in my new place. I’m by myself. I’m looking out the window and I’m
thinking to myself, ‘What the (bleep) did I get myself into?’ ”
Milne pauses and shakes his head.
“He was 18 . . .,” he says.
The “he” in this case is left-winger Ivan Rohac, a Slovakian who had
something of a language barrier — he didn’t speak any English — when he
joined the Blazers prior to last season.
Still, in slightly more than year, Rohac has overcome that to become a major
contributor to the Blazers’ cause.
On the ice, the speediest of the Blazers has 16 points in 23 games, a
considerable improvement over last season when he struggled early on and
finished with 27 points in 70 games.
“Hockey is such a universal game that when we get the systematic stuff
going, Ivan understands that,” Milne says. “It’s just that now he is
understanding the way he has to play in order to be successful in our group.
He understood the systems, he just didn’t understand why we do what we do.”
According to trainer Colin (Toledo) Robinson, Rohac is a major force in the
dressing room, too.
“He’s the best jumpdancer I’ve ever had,” Robinson says. “He can really
breakdance. He spins on his head; he can do it all. He often takes us home.”
The dance routine has become a Blazers’ pregame ritual since Robinson joined
the team. It is an honour to be the player who takes his teammates home.
“The players love being around him,” Milne adds. “He’s so energetic and
enthusiastic. When he comes to the rink, he just puts a smile on everybody’s
face.”
While Rohac is always quick to smile, he admits the transition hasn’t been
easy.
“It was very hard for me,” he says, looking back to when he first arrived
here. “I don’t understand English. New people. New life. New country. New
everything. Even new food. It was hard for me, you know.”
Spend some time talking with him and you get the feeling that his first
three months here were spent in something of a fog. Everything was so
strange and it was coming at him so fast. But the curtain, it seems, started
to lift after three months.
It’s to Rohac’s credit that he never thought about quitting and going home.
In fact, while he hadn’t heard of Kamloops, the Blazers or the WHL before he
was selected in the CHL import draft, he says he wasn’t at all nervous about
coming to Kamloops.
“No. No. I come and try,” he says. “Why not? Maybe I play good, maybe stay.
Maybe I play bad, go back. I had nothing to lose.”
And as time moved along he noticed that things got easier.
“It is easier now,” he says. “But the first three months were very hard for
me because the language . . . I don’t speak and I don’t understand anything.
The guys helped me and I have tutors.”
Rohac has watched a lot of TV, especially news and sports programs. He would
try to relate what he saw to what he was hearing. And, he adds, “I tried
reading things like newspapers.”
Rohac says he also got a lot of help from teammate Juuso Puustinen, a Finn
who also joined the Blazers in time for last season. The difference was that
Puustinen had taken English in school.
“I kind of understood right away what he was going to say,” Puustinen says.
“We had a type of communication that was really good. Of course, it’s easier
when you know the language.”
There wasn’t a problem communicating on the ice, though.
“He reads the game with his eyes very good,” Puustinen says of Rohac, who
now is one of his linemates.
Asked if he is enjoying life on a line with Puustinen — sophomore Alex
Rodgers centres the two — Rohac lights up like a Christmas tree.
“Oh yeah,” he says. “Oh yeah. We’re both from Europe. Europe hockey is
different. Lots of skill there . . . techniques. I understand that game.”
So, Rohac is asked, does this make Rodgers a European?
Rohac flashes that 100-watt smile and nods.
“Yeah,” he says with a laugh. “Yeah, I think so.”
With the Blazers, who play host to the Everett Silvertips tonight, 7
o’clock, at The ATM, having won five of their last six games, Rohac has
reason to smile. But these days there is an extra reason for the grin on his
face.
On Monday, he heard from an official with the Slovakian national junior
team. Rohac never has been on that team’s radar, but it seems he’s there
now.
You can bet that all of Rohac’s teammates are pulling for him to be on that
Slovakian team when the 2008 tournament opens Dec. 26 in Pardubice and
Liberec, Czech Republic.
“He’s got such a great personality,” Robinson says. “He’s such a fun-loving
guy. But now everyone is getting a better understanding of who he is.”
JUST NOTES: G Justin Leclerc of the Blazers has been nominated by the WHL as
the CHL’s goaltender of the week. Leclerc won both his starts last week,
stopping 49 of 51 shots (.961 save percentage), and three more in the
shootout part of a 2-1 victory over the visiting Kelowna Rockets. . . .
Former Blazers captain Reid Jorgensen is the Canada West player of the week.
He had four points as his Calgary Dinos swept the Manitoba Bisons 6-4 and
3-2. He had a goal and an assist in each game, including the OT winner in
Saturday’s game.