Aged tender 17, Zdenek Blatny waved his home and his youth team Kometa Brno goodbye and headed overseas. He hit the ice in Canada running, winning the WHL with Kootenay Ice in 1999/200, scoring 109 points in 82 games. Needless to say, the NHL became aware of the hard-working forward, who plays the game in a rather American, physical way, then in a Czech, technical one. The Atlanta Thrashers, who’ve only recently relocated to Winnipeg and were renamed Jets acquired Blatny with their third round pick in the same year. He got limited ice time with the first team (and scored three goals) and was more often seen in the Thrashers AHL-affiliates, the Chicago Wolves. From then on, Blatny’s career went the journeyman way. He stopped to play Hockey in Finland, Czech Republic (HC Orli Znojmo), back in the AHL and the NHL with Boston before turning to Europe and winning the Eliteserien with MODO. With the championship-medal of Sweden in his bag, he went to NLA; Extraliga, Germany’s second tier and Slovakia. It is from Dukla Trencin, a team that lost in the semis of the playoffs, that Blatny now arrives in Graz.