- Libor Polášek
Infobox Ice Hockey Player
position = Centre
shot = Left
height_ft = 6
height_in = 04
weight_lb = 226
played_for = Vsetin HCDubnica Spartak HC (Slovak)
Kosice HC (Slovak)Zvolen HK
Plzen HC
Vitkovice HCOpava HC HC Slavia Praha
league =Czech Extraliga
nationality = CZE
birth_date = birth date and age|1974|04|22
birth_place =Novy Jicin ,Czechoslovakia
career_start =1992
career_end =2006
draft = 21st overall
draft_year = 1992
draft_team =Vancouver Canucks Libor Polasek is regarded by most
Vancouver Canucks fans, and hockey people in general, as one of the worst NHL first-round draft picks the team ever made. BornApril 22 ,1974 , he was selected 21st overall by GMPat Quinn in the1992 NHL Entry Draft . The Canucks could have pickedValeri Bure , (the small-but-skilled younger brother of breakout starPavel Bure ), who was eventually selected 33rd by theMontreal Canadiens .Playing career
The Canucks hoped that the tall (6’4”) Czech center would develop into a
Mark Messier -like player. Instead, Polasek had difficulty making an impact even at the minor-league level.He scored a total of just 18 goals over two seasons (1992–1994) playing with the
Hamilton Canucks farm team in the AHL. In the AHL playoffs in 1993–94, he scored no goals in three games during Hamilton’s four-games first-round loss to Cornwall.After a goal-less seven-game stint in the
ECHL in 1994–95, he returned to the AHL with the new Canuck affiliateSyracuse Crunch and scored just two goals in 45 games. In 1995–96, he played 19 games in the Czech league then returned to the Crunch for eight more goal-less games. He returned to Europe and in almost a decade of playing for Czech and Slovak teams he scored just 41 goals from 1996–97 to 2005–06.Performance reception
According to CNNSI.com’s 2001 profile of Canuck draft busts ( [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/hockey/nhl/news/2001/08/08/sayitaintso_canucks Say it ain’t so: Transactions that broke our hearts] ): “Polasek fared worse than the previous three (first-round busts
Dan Woodley ,Jason Herter andAlek Stojanov ) combined -- he never played in an NHL game. In fact, one is hard-pressed to even find statistics on Polasek in many hockey annals.” TheVancouver Sun ’s Iain MacIntyre also wrote in 2001 that if “nuclear winter ” set in due to the Canuck draft record in the 80s, then the team “detonated theH-bomb on themselves in 1992 in the form of Libor Polasek, who soon vanished. Not so the Canucks' reputation for picking more duds than CBS programmers.”Career statistics
--- Regular Season --- ---- Playoffs ----Season Team Lge GP G A Pts PIM GP G A Pts PIM--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1992-93 Hamilton Canucks AHL 60 7 12 19 34 -- -- -- -- --1993-94 Hamilton Canucks AHL 76 11 12 23 40 3 0 0 0 01994-95 South Carolina Stingrays ECHL 7 0 0 0 6 -- -- -- -- --1994-95 Syracuse Crunch AHL 45 2 8 10 16 -- -- -- -- --1995-96 Syracuse Crunch AHL 8 0 2 2 6 -- -- -- -- --1995-96 Vitkovice HC Czech 19 4 5 9 26 3 0 0 0 21996-97 Vitkovice HC Czech 23 4 4 8 66 -- -- -- -- --1996-97 Slavia Praha HC Czech 12 3 1 4 55 -- -- -- -- --1997-98 Vitkovice HC Czech 48 10 9 19 56 -- -- -- -- --1998-99 Vitkovice HC Czech 8 2 1 3 39 -- -- -- -- --1998-99 Opava HC Czech 35 5 6 11 80 -- -- -- -- --1999-00 Vitkovice HC Czech 27 7 8 15 42 -- -- -- -- --2000-01 Vitkovice HC Czech 36 3 6 9 54 -- -- -- -- --2000-01 Plzen HC Czech 10 2 1 3 6 -- -- -- -- --2001-02 Zilina HK-SKP Slova 13 0 0 0 10 -- -- -- -- --2003-04 Zvolen HKm Slova 45 5 11 16 69 17 2 2 4 392004-05 Kosice HC Slova 15 0 0 0 22 -- -- -- -- --2004-05 Dubnica Spartak HC Slova 19 0 1 1 10 -- -- -- -- --2005-06 Vsetin HC Czech 2 0 0 0 0 -- -- -- -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ee also
*
List of AHL seasons External links
*
* [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/hockey/nhl/news/2001/08/08/sayitaintso_canucks Say it ain’t so: Transactions that broke our hearts] . www.CNNSI.com. Accessed on April 30, 2007
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
