Athlete Profile Denisa Krizova

Athlete Profile on Denisa Krizova
By: Samantha Puckhaber

LAKE PLACID--- Denisa Krizova of the Czech national team has made the journey to the National Sports Academy with her teammate Lenka Craigova, to help the Mountaineers to a promising season.

This is Krizova's first time at an American school and she finds it challenging. Thus far, Krizova has found National Sports Academy to be a test of her academic and athletic abilities.

Having the chance to spend time with the Mountaineer, Krizova talked about the challenges she must overcome in order to have a great season.

The largest obstacle she must endure will have to start with her language barrier, "In Czech I learned english for about 5 years," Krizova started, "but when I came here I didn't understand because everyone speaks so fast."

Krizova sporting her Czech jersey

Being in an all english speaking school, and her 1st language being Czech, Krizova must learn to overcome the difficult stresses of the National Sports Academy academics.

Although things are much different from the Czech Republic, Krizova says that she enjoys the different climate. Krizova said that America is much bigger than the Czech Republic and that even though it's a cultural shock she actually likes the large environment.

Krizova tells me, "NSA is fun because everythings new, and it's great."

As mentioned above, Krizova is part of the Czech national team along with fellow Mountaineer Lenka Craigova. Craigova is bilingual making her transition to NSA easier but Craigova helps Krizova with her challenge of language. Although Krizova plays for a national team in her home country she still believes the hockey at National Sports Academy is superior to her home nation.

Krizova is a Mountaineer worth meeting, she loves to joke around with her team, and is quite funny when given the opportunity, the NSA girls hockey team have come to notice.

Teammate Kelsey Lynch shares an example about Krizova's fun personality "Denisa is hilarious! We dropped our gloves and started fake fighting, then she started pulling my jersey over my head, then she said 'I win!' after I fell to the ice." Krizova is a great hockey player and has a high spirited personality.
   
Although she feels that the ice hockey at National Sports Academy is better she doesn't consider every aspect of hockey here more difficult.

 "In the Czech Republic we work harder and focus more at training," Krizova began, "but we don't have dryland and ice back-to-back so I'm not used to this. It's challenging and new for me."

Krizova is dealing with obstacles but is determined to make everything work, and plans to work hard the for the whole season.