What they said: 10 notable Blackhawks quotes from World Cup media day

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Stan Bowman on Michal Kempny’s adjustment to the NHL
Well, that’s the biggest question with these players is how quickly can they transition. I know a year ago when we were talking about Panarin, I tried to caution everybody like let’s just wait and see here, and obviously he sort of blew it out of the water with his play.
But it’s not simple. It’s not as easy as people might think. You’re coming over to a totally different culture, different language and different game in the sense that the rink is smaller, things happen quicker. So that’s the one adjustment. I’m not sure how quick it’ll happen.
As a defenseman it’s different than a forward coming over. You’re defending different angles and you have more time probably on a bigger rink, so the quickness of your decisions is something he’s going to have to get used to, but I’ve seen him play briefly. We obviously played against him last night. I thought he played a strong game. He played almost 25 minutes. So I think he has the ability to make that transition quickly.
Off the ice is another challenge. I think he’s got to learn the language to be able to communicate. I think having Michael Rozsíval around is going to help in that regard, similar with what we have with Panarin. I always try to tell people, just imagine you were going to go live in the Czech Republic and you don’t speak the language. It’s hard. You spend an hour or two at the rink in a game, you’re there for a couple hours, and then you go away, and it’s a totally different world. Michal, from the times I’ve spoken to him, he’s pretty mature that way. I think he’s going to be okay, but we have to be understanding that it’s not going to happen in an instant. It’s going to be a process.

Marian Hossa on his shooting percentage decline
Not sure why I was not as effective as before. If I knew exactly at what point, I’d really work on that. But I don’t have an answer for that obviously. Maybe sometimes I know lots of guys when they start well since the beginning it kind of carry you through the season. You hit the point where you’re more comfortable. You don’t squeeze the stick as much. I think it’s important to start well. If you don’t start well, maybe you start squeezing the stick a little harder. If you got chances, you’re not finishing as comfortable maybe. Maybe also it could also be the age. I don’t know. There’s like lots of those guys who are great numbers and when they hit a certain it kind of slowly the numbers go down. It could be all three different things.

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Good stuff, thanks for posting it.
 

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