Admirals’ Cal O’Reilly on his time with Milwaukee, fans.
He played his first pro game as an Admiral in 2005 at 19. A thousand games later, Cal O’Reilly reflects on his experience with the franchise and fans.
It’s not a huge surprise that Ondrej Pavel’s most recent big move in hockey has been substantially easier than his first.
Now he’s a 24-year-old professional. An in-season trade brought him to the Milwaukee Admirals, and he assimilated quickly, helping the team win the AHL Central Division and earn a first-round playoff bye.
Then he was 16, noticed at a tournament in Canada while playing for the Czech U17 national team and given the opportunity to play juniors in the United States. The idea appealed to him. Pavel wanted his best chance to ascend the hockey ladder, and just as important, he wanted an education.
Boy, did he get one.
“You can get around with the language barrier, but it’s more like how things work,” Pavel said of the adjustment. “Like, when am I supposed to be (somewhere)? Like, when are our workouts? … No one gives you a pamphlet.”
Junior players living away from home typically stay with a family in the city where they’re playing. Hosts may or may not be familiar with the culture or language of the player they take in, and some are more curious or attentive than others.
“They were just like, hey, this is your room. There you go,” Pavel continued, speaking of his first experience after joining the Minnesota Wild of the Tier 1 Elite Hockey League. “OK, well, I’m hungry. What happens now? I didn’t know that I could just (join) their dinner, and they didn’t really tell me.
“So I remember, like, the first or second day after I arrived to the U.S. … I walked, like, 4 miles to I think it was McDonald’s, something like that, that I figured out was the closest food.
“The struggle (to) figure out how things work at the start, it’s probably the hardest.”
Pavel became closer with subsequent families, and his comfort and confidence grew. He advanced through the North American Hockey League to the United State Hockey League, went through the recruiting process and earned his spot in Division I college hockey with Minnesota State.
That’s probably not the typical dream path for a young player from Prague.
“I think the NCAA is getting way more and more exposure,” Pavel said. “The primary driving factor for me was that I wanted to play hockey, but I wanted to study. I wanted to finish college, and back home that would be very difficult to do.
“So the only way I saw to do it was to play college hockey. And when I looked more into it, I saw only amazing things.”
Then-Minnesota State coach Mike Hastings, now at Wisconsin, worked with Pavel and the school’s administration to help him to continue his studies after his three years with the Mavericks. Pavel was able to earn his degree in mechanical engineering with a math minor while playing in the Colorado Avalanche organization.
“I was fortunate enough that mainly the coaching staff there, they knew how much it meant to me to finish the degree, so they kind of opened up my way to the faculty,” Pavel said. “And then obviously the faculty itself, they helped me out a lot by allowing me to do that. I cannot say enough good things about them.”
While the degree was important to Pavel, he is careful to point out that it wasn’t necessarily to set him up as an engineer once his playing days are done. Education, in general, was important, and the subject matter intrigued him.
For the moment, though, Pavel’s focus is on his current job.
The center was obtained by the Nashville Predators organization in December in exchange for Juuso Parssinen and a swap of draft picks.
In 43 regular-season games with the Admirals since then, Pavel has scored eight goals with 10 assists, surpassing his total output in 77 AHL games with the Colorado Eagles and two NHL games with the Avalanche.
Pavel has been one of numerous players who came in midstream – along with the likes of Grigori Denisenko, Mark Friedman, Jesse Ylonen, Chase De Leo and Anders Bjork – to help the Admirals not only overcome call-ups, injuries and trades but climb to the top of the Central Division standings and earn a first-round playoff bye.
The Admirals will play the Rockford Ice Hogs in a best-of-five series that begins May 1 at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
“The turnover from year to year, at least we saw that this last year, it’s incredible for every team,” Pavel said “And that’s the neat trick, right? How do you make sure that the culture is preserved? How do you make sure that the team keeps getting successful?
“Obviously someone over here figured it out, so I’m just happy to be here and be part of it.”
And still learning.
AHL Central Division semifinals schedule
Game 1: Rockford IceHogs at Milwaukee Admirals, 7 p.m. May 1
Game 2: Rockford IceHogs at Milwaukee Admirals, 6 p.m. May 3
Game 3: Milwaukee Admirals at Rockford IceHogs, 7 p.m., May 7
Game 4: Milwaukee Admirals at Rockford IceHogs, 7 p.m. May 9, if necessary
Game 5: Rockford IceHogs at Milwaukee Admirals, 4 p.m. May 11, if necessary