Adam Svoboda (26 January 1978 – 7 May 2019) was a Czech ice hockey goaltender and coach.
Club career
Svoboda began his professional career with
HC Sparta Praha
Hockey Club Sparta Praha, commonly known as HC Sparta Prague, is a Prague-based Czech ice hockey team playing in the Czech Extraliga. The club has won four Czech championships (most recently in 2007) and four Czechoslovak championships, as ...
, starting in 25 games for the club throughout the
1996-97 Czech Extraliga season. He spent the next few years in
Pardubice
Pardubice (; german: Pardubitz) is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 89,000 inhabitants. It is the capital city of the Pardubice Region and lies on the Elbe River. The historic centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monu ...
, before leaving for the
Nürnberg Ice Tigers
The Nürnberg Ice Tigers are a professional ice hockey club located in Nuremberg, Germany. They play in the country's premier league, the Deutsche Eishockey Liga.
History
The roots of the team can be traced back to SG Nürnberg, an ice hockey cl ...
in 2004. After brief stints in Russia and Sweden, he returned to the Czech Extraliga at the end of the
2005-06 season.
Svoboda won his first Extraliga title in
2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
with
HC Slavia Praha, and later a second one five years later, this time as a member of the
HC Škoda Plzeň
HC Škoda Plzeň is a professional Czech ice hockey team based in Plzeň, Czech Republic. It currently plays in the Czech Extraliga. Their home arena is Home Monitoring Aréna. The traditional ice hockey club was founded in 1929. In 2013, for the ...
. He retired at the age of 39 in 2017, spending the final season of his career in Kazakhstan.
International
Svoboda was a part of the
Czech national team at four different
IIHF World Championships, taking home the gold in
2005
File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...
and a silver medal a year later. Throughout his career, he also represented his country at numerous smaller international tournaments, including the
Euro Hockey Tour.
Death
Svoboda was found dead by police on 7 May 2019. Officers at the scene ruled out foul play, the probable cause of death being
suicide by hanging. He was 41 years old.
A few months prior to his passing, Svoboda was fired from his coaching job with the
Czech national under-18 team after he crashed his car while
driving under the influence
Driving under the influence (DUI)—also called driving while impaired, impaired driving, driving while intoxicated (DWI), drunk driving, operating while intoxicated (OWI), operating under the influence (OUI), operating vehicle under the infl ...
.
References
External links
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1978 births
2019 suicides
2019 deaths
Czech ice hockey goaltenders
Avangard Omsk players
Beibarys Atyrau players
HC Berounští Medvědi players
HC Lada Togliatti players
Nürnberg Ice Tigers players
HC Dynamo Pardubice players
HC Slavia Praha players
HC Sparta Praha players
Stadion Hradec Králové players
Timrå IK players
Czech expatriate ice hockey players in Russia
Suicides by hanging in the Czech Republic
HC Plzeň players
Ice hockey people from Brno
Czech expatriate ice hockey players in Germany
Czech expatriate ice hockey players in Sweden
Czech expatriate sportspeople in Kazakhstan
Expatriate ice hockey players in Kazakhstan
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