The start of the season for Sochi was clearly successful – the southerners pleasantly surprised with their game, beat the established giants (Ak Bars and Lokomotiv will not let you lie) and confidently took fourth place in the West. The hero of the interview is one of the main creators of this success, albeit local, but still – Croatian striker Borna Rendulic.
In Russia, Borna is remembered for playing for Vityaz near Moscow, then between 2017 and 2019, Rendulic scored just 42 points in over 80 games. Frankly, this is not the most impressive statistic for a foreign player, but Borna is not used to giving up and decided to return to the KHL. He signed up for a season in Sochi, and, it should be noted, his return is more than successful: his connection is with Kryshtof and Zavgorodniy, and Rendulic himself exceeds the grandmaster’s schedule – one point per game ( 14 points in 12 matches).
After a crushing defeat against CSKA with a score of 1:7, Borna answered all questions without hesitation. Of course, it was clear that he was annoyed, but he had no doubt that in the next match everything would be different. And it turned out he was right! As a result, Rendulic’s hat-trick (the first Croatian hat-trick in the history of the KHL) and Sochi’s victory in the match against Torpedo.
FROM THIS INTERVIEW WITH BORNA RENDULIC YOU WILL LEARN:
“PLAYING WITH LANDESKOG AND O’REILLY WAS DIFFICULT, I HAD TO WORK A LOT ON THE ICE”
— Why did you decide to continue your career in Sochi?
— I played in Europe for the last four seasons, and all this time I wanted to return to the KHL. I received an offer from Sochi, with which I was completely satisfied. I decided that this was a good place to try myself in the KHL again and I will try to show everything I can here.
— Can you say that Sochi resembles a city in your native Croatia?
— Yes, in my country there are many such towns on the sea coast. Here I feel at home. Not just in Sochi, but throughout Russia. We have similar languages and food. In general, I like everything here, I have never encountered any problems in Russia.
— How, in your opinion, does hockey in Russia differ from European hockey?
— The main difference is the size of the ice. Of course, in Europe, it’s bigger and you can feel it. In general, more and more young players appear in hockey, which increases the pace of the game. Hockey has become much faster than five years ago.
— Name the team or partner that was the most enjoyable to play with.
“It’s difficult to say that straight away in my entire career. I remember I had a good season at Adler Mannheim, I scored 27 goals. I had a great guy playing with me, Jan-Mikael Järvinen. From day one, we found a common language on the ice and went through the entire season together. It’s always nice to play with people who understand you.
— You attended training camp in Colorado. Honestly, I thought you’d nominate someone like MacKinnon…
– Yes, of course, I remember that time. It’s true, I was very young at the time, I was 22 years old. And I didn’t really think about who was training and playing with me. I actually never crossed paths with MacKinnon, but I played on a line with O’Reilly and Landeskog and even scored. Of course it was cool, but playing with such guys is very difficult. I felt like I was working for them, having to run a lot, fight for the puck, get open and do all the right things.
Of course, when you are young, you may not succeed in everything, the main thing is to continue working, so I tried to do everything that depended on me correctly and not think about the prospects, I had a goal – I really wanted to get into the NHL.
— You’ve probably heard the story of Brandon Kozun signing a tryout contract with Colorado?
– Yes, I know about it. Such situations happen. I think the reason is that some players just want to stay home, they have no desire to return to Europe, they look for new challenges here and find them in the NHL. Such daredevils can really succeed, you can just come to training camp and wait for a chance, and suddenly something happens and they sign a contract with you. Suddenly someone notices you, for this you do not need to stay behind the scenes, you need to go on stage.
“IN EVERY MATCH, SOCHI SHOULD PLAY AS ONE, EVERYONE HERE DOES THEIR JOB PROPERLY”
— Reveal the secret of your performance, I remember your goals for Vityaz, how do you still manage to surprise the goalkeepers and score goals?
— You can’t answer right away, usually the goals come by themselves, if you are good on the ice you can score incredible goals. Sometimes it happens that the game does not go well, but the main thing is not to give up and everything will work out.
— The last seasons were not very successful for Sochi, the team did not reach the playoffs. The Leopards have made an impressive start to the championship this year, what is the reason?
“Everyone here does their job correctly and at a high level, this year the team has excellent players, we had a good pre-season. Sochi has a new coaching team, you can say it’s a new and different team. I think the main thing is to play together in every game, then the victories will be ours and we will definitely achieve all our goals.
— There are a lot of young people in the team, Matvey Michkov recently returned to Sochi. Do you think young players have a big impact on results?
– They always play until the last minute. Yes, of course there are mistakes that need to be corrected, but the main thing is not to dwell on them, guys need to improve from game to game. The young players help our team a lot.
— Last question, but not least: do you still have the dream of reaching the NHL or has time already passed and you have given up?
— The NHL is every hockey player’s dream; it cannot disappear. I will probably always think about it in the back of my mind. But I’m 31, I’ve been there before, and you know, I accomplished something in hockey, and now I probably have other priorities in life than just getting to the NHL . But… you should never say never, right? So who knows.
Watch Fonbet matches of the KHL championship on the channels of the Match holding company, as well as on the sites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.
Source : MatchTV
I’m Emma Smith, a dedicated journalist and avid storyteller. I have been writing for news websites for the past 5 years, reporting on hockey news and delivering in-depth analysis of the sport. In my current role as Author at Athletistic, I write about hockey events from around the world to keep followers up-to-date with what’s happening in the sport.
