In the much anticipated CHL debut in Poland, Sparta Prague played the role of spoilers, winning 7-2 over Cracovia thanks to three goals from Tomas Netik. Read more in Gamecentre.

It's not a big surprise that Sparta Prague beat Comarch Cracovia by a 7-2 score, but thanks to the netminding of Rafal Radziszewski, the Polish champs were within two goals when the third period began before things finally went downhill. Sparta fired 44 shots at the Cracovia net in the game, scoring once in the first period, three times in a wild second in which the home team also struck twice, and three more in the third. 

"I think it was a little bit nervous on both sides. You could see it in the start, there were a lot of mistakes," said Sparta coach Jiri Kalous. About Cracovia he said, "We didn't know what to expect because we'd never played against a Polish team. They had many chances and there were many mistakes on our side. We're happy we won but we need to clean up our play in our own end and play better on defence if we want to be successful in future games." 

Sparta started strong but only had a Lukas Klimek power-play goal to show for the first period. With the score 2-0 in the 24th minute, the crowd of 7124 went crazy when Filip Drzewiecki converted a 2-on-1 with Richard Jencik to put Cracovia on the board for the first time in the CHL. They were also within a goal, but that was short-lived as Sparta strick twice quickly to go up 4-1. Jencik then scored to close the gap again before the second intermission. Damian Slabon assisted on both Cracovia goals.

Tomas Netik, who scored once in the second, also scored the game's last two goals to record the CHL's first hat-trick of the season. The goals were both assisted by Dominik Uher, who also had a three-point night, as did Lukas Klimek.

"I think we had a really good start and then we fell asleep there for a while in the second period," said Uher. "We have to give credit to Cracovia. They came on and generated some chances. Then we got our game together again in the third period." 

Cracovia coach Rudolf Rohacek agreed: "For the first 10 minutes of the game we played a little scared but after that we created more and more attacks and we started to play much better. I agree with coach Kalous – Sparta, same as us, made a lot of mistakes but they are one of the best teams in Europe and they mercilessly took advantage of our mistakes. Sparta’s win was fully earned. For us, this game was a very good experience. We for sure will learn a lesson from this game and we can use this experience in future games."