I´ve noticed that the papers write a lot about my birthday. For me, though, it is no big deal really, I have no time for that. I´ve never been into that stuff. It´s just you that make so much fuss about it. Which I don´t like much and I´ll tell you why.

It´s because I'm trying hard to keep my age a secret so that no one knows how old I am. I might still get a new contract here but now everyone will learn how old I am and I'm done. What a number of years… So I'm really kind of upset that it's gone public.

Plus anyway, you've got it all wrong. When I am asked about my age, I always say thirty. Now you keep on writing forty everywhere, which really does not help. Actually, even thirty is not quite correct. I am thirty-five. Honestly. Let me explain.

When I was a kid, the rules would not allow me to play hockey before I reached a certain age. So my Dad made me older by five years so I could play at all. Sometimes they say he only added three. No, they were five. So now I'm thirty-five, not forty. To make it sound even better, I prefer to tell everyone I'm just thirty. So I hope from now on you will get it right.

1972, DĚTSTVÍ - Narodil se 15. února 1972 v Kladně (přesně v části Švermov Hnidousy). „Bylo to snad symbolicky ve stejném roce, kdy Československo získalo po vítězství nad Sověty titul mistra světa,“ vzpomínal ve své autobiografii. Do školy šel v roce 1978.







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Now to be serious for a while – I must say I really don't think much of my birthdays. Never have. Age is just a number. Moreover, here in Philadelphia there are lots of lads around me who help me not to feel that old. When I hear them talking, the stuff they discuss, it brings me back to my youth. One gets younger just being around them.

In any case, I am grateful to people for wishing me happy birthday, I'd like to thank everyone for that. Even our president Václav Klaus congratulated me. I really appreciate that, things like that don't happen to you every day. You do feel pleased when such a personality wishes you happy birthday. However, I´m not planning a celebration at the moment, there's no time for it, our schedule is busy.

We are not in the right mood for it either, for Philadelphia is not doing well right now. Of the six last games we lost five and we have to move up a gear and start winning again, or else we will never make it to the play off at all! It´s no fun. The standings are tight and several lost games in a row can mean a real problem.

Again it proved to be true that we don't do well in the afternoon matches. On Saturday we played the Rangers right after lunch. And unfortunately we lost again – for the fifth time with them this season. That's a really terrible score.

To put it simply – at the moment we're in great trouble. Not just the team, but myself as well. It's not working, I'm not doing well. I only scored one goal over the last sixteen matches, as someone reminded me recently. Which is too bad. So I will try to pull myself together as well.

It's also far from ideal from the psychological point of view. When you lose, your body hurts more, you find it more difficult to relax. At such times, I sometimes feel older than my forty years… But that's the way sport is. Now we have a few days break so I believe we will all bounce back and do our best. So that we don't sink even lower.

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