When long-term friends and international teammates enter a draft, it’s fair to expect that they may end up on different teams. It’s what makes situations like Montreal’s Juraj Slafkovský and Filip Mešár so rare and the exception.
Well there’s another duo of teammates that both were picked by Montreal in the 2023 PWHL Draft: Czech World Championship bronze medalists Tereza Vanišová and Dominika Lásková.
The pair are 11 months apart which means that they have played together on many age-limited teams. Of the 12 seasons that Lásková has recorded on Elite Prospects, 10 include at least one team shared with Vanišova.
“Being with Tereza, it’s a dream because we’ve been best friends since we were 12 years old,” said Lásková.
“We were so happy we got drafted together to the same team,” said Vanišova. “We’ve known each other for so long. It’s great to be with someone you know so well. The set up is so good for us so we can live together, do stuff together, it’s been great.”
They got a house a 10-minute walk away from the Verdun Auditorium and were able to rent it for the season, as opposed to the entire year, and have it already furnished as well. The two Czechs knew when they showed up a the Draft together that the chances of them being on the same team were not high.
“We were ‘what are the chances we’ll go to the same team’ and then when she got drafted, I was ‘oh wow’ and then I was waiting and then Montreal said my name and I was like ‘Oh my God this is happening,'” Vanišova said.
It won’t even be the first time that the two of them play professionally in North America, as the two won the Isobel Cup last year with the Toronto Six in the PHF. There are five players from that team on Montreal’s roster, with goaltender Elaine Chuli, defender Kati Tabin, and forward Leah Lum. They do know some of the other players through the All-Star game in the PHF and playing against them at the professional and international levels.
Vanišova says that she played with boys in her home country until she was 18, at which point she made the move to North America, starting with a prep school in Ontario and then the University of Maine in the NCAA before pro stops in Boston, Sweden, and Toronto. Lásková’s path to Montreal was similar, but she started at the prep school the year after and went to Merrimack College before making her pro debut with Toronto.
“It’s been a long time away from home but it’s worth it,” Vanišova said.
The Montreal team is mostly made up of North American players, but the team is looking at incorporating the two Europeans in a unique fashion.
“It was really important for us to find players to diversify our group and ultimately make the collective better,” said Montreal head coach Kori Cheverie. “They bring a lot of fun to the rink. We did a holiday message [Wednesday] and we did it in English, French, and Czech which is really cool. I think it’s really important that we’re in a market where we have a French community, we have an English community, and for us we have a Czech community on our team and I feel it’s important that we recognize that as well.”
