by Henry Whitfield
Although the Halifax Mooseheads were 4-3 winners Sunday night in their pre-season game against Saint John, they recieved some terrible news for the future:
Martin Frk is not coming to Halifax this season, unless Bobby Smith takes the option of buying the young Czech stud out of his contract.
As released by the IIHF this weekend,
Czech 16-year old prospect Martin Frk has a valid contract with Karlovy Vary and can therefore not transfer to the Halifax Mooseheads of the Canadian Hockey League. This has been determined by the IIHF.
The Czech forward was selected third overall in the Canadian Hockey League’s so called Import Draft earlier this summer after he had 55 points and 184 penalty minutes in 38 games at the Czech under-20 level last season. But Frk’s Czech club Karlovy Vary challenged the ensuing transfer request from Halifax stating that the player has a valid and binding contract.
After an investigation the IIHF concluded that the professional player contract was validly signed by the player’s parents and the contract was not terminated according to the terms in the contract, a mutual agreement or a just cause.
As it is determined that a valid professional player contract exists between the player and Karlovy Vary, the player has committed a breach of the contract by leaving the club and going to Canada with the intention to play in Halifax.
According to the IIHF Transfer Regulation section II article 4.5, the IIHF General Secretary, on behalf of the IIHF, decided that the player’s International Transfer Card is not approved.
The Mooseheads had taken a gamble on the young player by choosing him high in the European import draft. Now with Frk not coming to Halifax, not only do the Moose miss out on a young scoring forward they must now plan to fill a void left by former captain Tomas Knotek who went back to Europe after last season.
The only positive in this situation has been the stellar play of forward Gabriel Desjardin’s so far this preseason and the prospect of seeing the likes of Darcy Ashley, Luca Ciampini and Matthew Boudreau in the line-up this season.
The next big question of the Mooseheads is which goalie they will keep for the future, with both Peter Delmas and Mathieu Corbeil fighting for the number one spot.
It appears that Peter Delmas is the safer choice as he can still be moved after Monday, however, if the Moose choose to keep Corbeil they would have to wait until December to move him.
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