Ice hockey: Vincent Praplan exceeds 500 matches

500e match en National League –

Vincent Praplan: “League A seemed so far away…”

The Ge/Servette striker will reach a highly symbolic milestone this Friday evening in Zug. The Valaisan shows a certain emotion while leafing through the souvenir album.

BotTalk

• The Eagles forward will play his 500th game in the elite of Swiss hockey on Friday.
• He looks in the rearview mirror before the trip to Zug.
• He says thank you to everyone who accompanied him on this adventure.

Does five hundred National League matches at 30 make you dizzy?

A little bit anyway, yes. It feels like yesterday I made my Kloten debut. And ten years later, I find myself in Geneva, competing in my 500^e match. It’s incredible, the crazy speed at which the years go by. I guess that’s life.

How will you feel on Friday evening in Zug during the warm-up?

Honestly, I’m not sure if there will be room for too many thoughts or if emotions will come up. When I was told two or three weeks ago that I was approaching this milestone, I didn’t expect it. At the time, a lot of things went through my head, everything good or bad I was able to experience thanks to hockey. I still feel young but the more kids arrive, the more I am forced to realize that a long way has already been covered.

Your first match in what we called the National League A?

It was with Kloten at home in the 2012/13 season, against Ambri, and we won 4-0 (editor’s note: 3-1 in fact, the 1^is December 2012). I was on the 13th^e attacking and I hadn’t touched the ice, but it was a cool experience nonetheless. My first skates were the following game at home against Friborg or not, wait, I think it was in Geneva (editor’s note: just, January 5, 2013, for a 5-2 defeat).

Out of the 499 matches, which matches do you cherish the most?

If we go in chronological order, with Kloten, I remember the final of the 2017 Swiss Cup which we won against Geneva, in front of our audience, with a good match and a goal on my part. It was my first trophy. With Berne, I also remember our success in the Cup, against Zurich, unfortunately almost without an audience because during the Covid. I had scored too and, even though we hadn’t been able to celebrate normally, it had still been a great evening.

And with Geneva, are you holding back the trophies too?

Yes of course. There is this act VII of the final against Bienne in 2023. It was the first championship title for me, obviously, but especially for the club, the city. These are hard feelings to describe and with time, the thanks in the street, you realize to what extent you were able to arouse strong emotions in people who had been waiting for this for so long. It warms the heart. I also remember the Champions League final last winter. A very high level match in a complicated season, where we had difficulty playing as a team. And there, we saw real unity for sixty minutes.

The match you wish you could forget?

The relegation match with Kloten, against Rapperswil, in April 2018. You are on the ice, at 23, there are a lot of expectations on you and you fail to deliver the goods. It was a terrible game to play and even worse to lose. An entire city suffered, people lost their jobs because of us that day, even if it was the consequence of a whole series of things. I stayed with that moment until Kloten returned to the National League four years later.

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You scored 114 goals and delivered 169 assists, or 283 points. Not bad, right?

Yeah, it’s not that bad. I had prolific years in Kloten and more complicated years in Bern. But I actually think it’s not bad, even if there would surely have been a way to add a few.

Your most beautiful?

The craziest thing was the one I scored on an airhook with Kloten against Geneva (editor’s note: February 2018). It was Robert Mayer on goal, we’ve talked about it a few times since. Afterwards, the good goals are the ones that are important, like those I scored in the Cup final.

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Are you waiting for HC Sierre to return to the National League in order to complete the loop?

We’ll see. We sometimes laugh about it with Arnaud (Jacquemet), who is also from there, saying that it would be great to wear this legendary jersey one day as a professional, with the red and yellow sun. Why not? I grew up 20 meters from the ice rink, I spent all my free time there and I saw the end of the great HC Sierre. Graben was full, it was the NHL, my heroes.

Who were your heroes?

The first one I followed in hockey was my big brother, Philippe. On the ice, it was Kelly Glowa – that’s why I had the N^o 29 in Kloten. I dreamed of one day playing in Graben and now I find myself with 500 matches in the elite. Seen from Valais, the A League seemed so far away… It would be very special to find it again with HC Sierre.

What do you want to say to conclude this interview?

When you have the chance to have a career in the LNA, you owe it to yourself and the efforts you have made. But we also owe it to many other people. So this is an opportunity for me to thank my family. My father-in-law, who was the first to take me to all the ice rinks in Switzerland; my big brother, my biggest supporter since the beginning; my older sister, who has always supported me even though she is not very hockey-loving; my other older sister, who always made me fall when we played together and thanks to whom I have a tough head. I also think of my mother who, four or five years ago, still asked me if I was an attacker or a defender.