by Michal Hanus
After a six week break the Czech Extraleague will continue with the playoffs starting this weekend. This season for the first time there will be all 8 Extraleague teams involved in the playoffs. The best four teams after round robin will play semifinal play-off series and the last 4 teams will play a series to keep their Extraleague spots in 2008.
The most focused play-off series is between 12 time consecutive champion AVG Draci Brno and last years runner up Arrows Ostrava. Under normal circumstances Draci will have no problem to make it to the final of the Extraleague, but the Arrows might surprise with their very young and talented squad coached by charismatic Anthony Bennet. The Draci Brno squad is very strong and contains many of the best players who play on Czech ballfields. It will be a real contest and is already an early final of Czech Extraleague!
In the second playoff series the Krc Altron and MZLU Express Brno will battle each other. There is no team favoured in this series and anything might happen. Krc Altron’s advantage is excellent youth programm that has produced many outstanding ballplayers. The team contains many young talented players in combination with experienced veterans. On the other hand MZLU Express Brno is in the playoffs for the first time and need to adjust to the pressure situation. Their advantage is that they have a very good and tight cooperation with Draci Brno that helped them in the last years. Also their overall potential could be a little higher.
In play-off series for retaining Extraleague spots there are also 2 series that start on the weekend. The fifth (Technika Brno) after regular season will play the eighth (Black Hill Blansko) and the 6th (Skokani Olomouc) will play the 7th (Tegola Titans Praha). In their series Technika is heavily favoured and will try to overcome the disappointment they suffered from ending up in 5th place and not making the semifinals of the Extraleague. The oter series is more open. Although Skokani has beaten the Titans 4 times in regular season play the Tegola Titans have been one of the strongest squads during the last weeks of the season.
All play-off series are best of five.
Upcoming games this weekend:
Sat 22nd 12:30 MZLU Express Brno vs. Krc Altron at MBS Brno
Sat 22nd 17:00 AVG Draci Brno vs. Arrows Ostrava at MBS Brno
Sun 23rd 12:30 MZLU Express Brno vs. Krc Altron at MBS Brno
Sun 23rd 17:00 AVG Draci Brno vs. Arrows Ostrava at MBS Brno
Sat 22nd 14:00 Technika Brno vs. Black Hill Blansko at Brno Kravi Hora
Sat 22nd 14:00 Skokani Olomouc vs. Tegola Titans Praha at Olomouc
Sun 23rd 14:00 Technika Brno vs. Black Hill Blansko at Brno Kravi Hora
Sun 23rd 14:00 Skokani Olomouc vs. Tegola Titans Praha at Olomouc