When senior forward Ondrej Psenicka takes his well-earned farewell lap on senior night on Saturday, it will mark the end of a long journey chock full of adversity — and mileage — that inevitably comes with moving 4,000 miles away to play college hockey.
The Prague, Czech Republic native will salute the Lynah Faithful for his final home game at Lynah Rink in front of his parents, who although typically only traverse the cross-continental flight once a year, will make their second of three trips this season to watch their son play.
“They came for the Madison Square Garden game, they are coming for this weekend and then eventually they are coming for the graduation,” Psenicka said with a wide grin. “So that's awesome. It's exciting.”
No international student’s path to Cornell is ever the same. And for a Division I hockey player from the Czech Republic, that path is even narrower and more difficult to navigate.
Before Psenicka arrived at Cornell, he had gone almost two years without playing hockey — unheard of for highly coveted, National Collegiate Athletic Association-bound hockey prospects.
Psenicka will leave Cornell with at least 124 games played, scoring 36 goals, 35 assists and counting. As he prepares to graduate with a degree from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations this spring, Psenicka looks back fondly on everything that got him here.
“I would never think that I would be that lucky to get to such a prestigious university like Cornell,” Psenicka said. “[I] still can’t believe it.
The Early Years
While the Czech Republic is now a strong competitor in international hockey, having medaled in the last three International Ice Hockey Federation U20 World Junior Championships and securing a bronze in the 2022 IIHF World Championship, it wasn’t always that way.
When a young Ondrej Psenicka was growing up in Prague, ice hockey wasn’t the popular sport amongst his friends. Instead, European-dominated sports like soccer and tennis were more common after-school activities.
Psenicka, much taller than most at his age, and who stands at 6’6” today, picked up a hockey stick because of his dad.
Stanislav Psenicka played hockey throughout his childhood, up until he hit a crossroads — go pro or get a college degree. The elder Psenicka ultimately chose the latter, a decision his son gives him a lot of credit for. But once his children reached an apt age, they were on skates.
“He kind of pushed my older brother to start playing hockey when he was three years old,” Psenicka said.
Tomas Psenicka, like his younger brother, rose through the ranks of HC Sparta Praha — a premier hockey club in Prague that has bred dozens of National Hockey League talents, including Zdeno Chåra, Martin Havlát and Patrik Štefan, among others.
“So when I was very little, I used to go to watch [Tomas’] practices. I was sitting on a bench with my mother, and eventually, I wanted to try it also,” Psenicka said. “So that's how I got into it. And I've been loving it since then.”
Ondrej was a natural — his size and fluidity on skates molded him to be a standout player on HC Sparta Praha’s U16 team, posting 80 points in 58 games across two seasons of play. Psenicka then graduated to the U18 team and ultimately cemented a spot for himself on the U18 national team roster.
In April 2019, 18-year-old Psenicka played in the IIHF U18 World Junior Championship in Sweden. Later that year, in December 2019, Psenicka flew across the ocean to Western Canada to participate in the World Junior A Challenge, a tournament organized by Hockey Canada catered to U19 hockey prospects.
In that tournament, Psenicka stuck out — his five points in as many games, in addition to taking the United States to double-overtime in the third-place match, drew attention from NCAA scouts.
Many European hockey prospects consider going pro around the ages of 19 and 20, but in the Czech Republic, Psenicka explained that certain teams and clubs can force younger kids — as early as ages 16 and 17 — into restrictive contracts. While some of his friends and teammates signed on to play professionally, Psenicka — encouraged by his father — stayed behind, preserving his amateur status and remaining eligible to play in the NCAA.
The plan for Psenicka was always to receive an education in conjunction with progressing his hockey career. After his father was forced to retire from hockey to prioritize his schooling, coming to the United States was an easy decision, albeit one with a difficult transition.
The forward considered playing in Sweden as a kid, but from the moment he stepped on North American ice as a 15-year-old, Psenicka knew his talents as both a hockey player and a person would be best suited overseas.
“Ever since then, I knew [that] this was the best way to go through [because of] the combination of higher education and great level of hockey,” Psenicka said. “Since I was 15 years old, this was the only way. This was the only goal I was focusing on.”
But before Psenicka committed to Cornell, and before he talked to any NCAA coaches, a large obstacle stood in his way: the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I thought I lost this whole opportunity to go to college,” Psenicka said.
The Pandemic in Prague
Many European players poised to play college hockey spend one year playing in North America before arriving at their respective campuses — whereas international and Czech surfaces are almost always 197 feet long by 97.5 feet wide, the North American and NHL ice sheets span 200 feet by 85 feet.
Psenicka signed with the Waterloo Black Hawks of the United States Hockey League to adjust to the surface before he got to college. He played 43 games for the team and had his first discussions with Cornell, the dream starting to take shape.
Then, in March 2020, the world shut down.
“I had to go back home and I didn't play hockey for two years,” Psenicka said. “I was only practicing on my own with two of my buddies in the little gym in my house.”
Once destined to reach a top NCAA program, Psenicka was stuck. In perhaps the most pivotal year for recruiting, Psenicka was left without a team to play for and, oftentimes, without ice. Lockdown restrictions in Prague were often so strict that Psenicka was confined to just a few kilometers, unable to practice at local rinks, much less play organized hockey.
“It was a pretty stressful and crazy time,” Psenicka said.
In efforts to curb the restrictions and continue training, Psenicka and his teammates would often roam the streets of Prague secretly, skating in “hidden” rinks around the city.
When he couldn’t get to the rink, Psenicka would resort to training in his own home, working on building strength as well as he could without proper coaching or guidance. Psenicka recalls he and two teammates cramming into his home gym in an effort to continue any kind of training.
“There was one time [for] four weeks in a row where the restrictions were so strict that we literally couldn't leave the radius of, like, five kilometers,” Psenicka said.
As the 2020-2021 season loomed, Psenicka tried to return to the United States to play another season with Waterloo. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, he wasn’t allowed.
Psenicka’s misfortune continued as 2020 came to an end, when Psenicka traveled to Edmonton, Canada for the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championships with the U20 national team. Psenicka was told the final roster cuts would be made after the team’s two exhibition games, giving Psenicka a chance to prove himself before pool play started.
Then Sweden, the team the Czech Republic was set to play in the first exhibition game, had multiple players test positive for COVID-19. Their game was subsequently canceled, and cuts were ultimately made earlier than expected, Psenicka being among those cut, likely due to his lack of game experience that year.
“It was just pretty funny how [that] whole year went. I was flying home from Edmonton alone on Christmas Day,” Psenicka said.
Cornell’s Call
Then, by a stroke of what he perceived to be luck, Psenicka got a call one day from head coach Mike Schafer ’86.
“I couldn't believe it because I didn't play for [anywhere] for two years,” Psenicka said.
The first glimpse Psenicka got of Lynah Rink was through Zoom, as Schafer showed Psenicka the ice and the rest of the team’s facilities on a recruiting call. Psenicka never visited Cornell, or the other school in the running for him — Harvard.
It was the culture at Cornell that stuck out to Psenicka. Based on the few conversations he had with Schafer and the rest of the staff, he zeroed in on Cornell as his top choice.
“Ondrej did a good job checking around to see where he wanted to go to school hockey-wise [and] what kind of fit him as a person,” Schafer said. “I think he made a great choice.”
But it wasn’t until April of 2021, four months before he was anticipating to arrive on campus, that he was officially admitted to the University. Psenicka endured hours upon hours of studying and practicing for both the SAT and the Test of English as a Foreign Language, for what he described to be an extremely difficult four to five months.
Though Psenicka struggled to attain the initial scores needed to meet Cornell’s standards — something Schafer cites as the biggest barrier to international recruiting — he has made the transition to college seamlessly, both on and off the ice.
“He’s done unbelievable in school. I think he’s been over a 4.0 his last three or four semesters,” Schafer said.
Psenicka has been placed on the ECAC All-Academic team for each of his first three years at Cornell and will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in ILR as well as a business minor.
And when he’s not in the classroom, he’s training. Psenicka has missed time due to injury over his four years, including a separated shoulder and double-hip surgery — he added with a laugh that he can’t recall a season where he wasn’t injured since playing hockey. But that hasn’t inhibited Psenicka from the ultimate goal of playing professionally, attending an NHL development camp with the New Jersey Devils in 2023.
“[The] season is long [and] hard, so injuries happen, and it's more about just how to get better even when you're injured, [rather] than looking at the negative,” Psenicka said.
Due to the smaller ice size in North America, Psenicka credits his Cornell coaches for teaching him how to use his size to combat the speed of opposing skaters.
Ahead of his final season, Psenicka got to return to Prague and play against some of his teammates this past August as part of the team’s abroad trip. The full-circle experience, Psenicka reflected, was “something special.”
What’s also special, according to Psenicka, is the experience of playing hockey at Cornell.
“I know everybody says that, but it's just like, enjoy every moment, because it runs super quickly,” Psenicka said. “[Upperclassmen] would [tell] me [this] stuff, and I was just looking at him like: ‘Hey, no, I have four years.’”
As his four years wane much sooner than he expected, Psenicka is overwhelmed with gratitude, reckoning with the bittersweet feeling of his college hockey career coming to an end. But he’s still able to crack a smile and remind anyone that, despite the celebrations happening this weekend, he’s not done yet.
“I'm happy [with] how I spent my four years here. And, you know, I still have a couple months,” Psenicka said. “I'm excited about enjoying these last [few] months and hopefully finishing up the season strong.”
