A former up-and-coming, top-pairing fill-in for the Tampa Bay Lightning has signed a two-year extension in Czechia. Defenseman Jake Dotchin will continue with Rytíři Kladno of the Tipsport Extraliga for two seasons, as the team announced today.
Dotchin, a sixth-round draft pick of the Lightning in 2012, broke into the NHL in 2016-17 when injuries limited the Lightning to missing the playoffs entirely. He played 35 games with the Lightning that year, notching 11 assists and notably saw time with Victor Hedman on the team’s top pair. It earned him a two-year contract extension to keep him within the organization.
As the Lightning regained their elite status as a team, Dotchin saw only 48 games in 2017-18 as he remained a full-time member of the NHL club. Then, as Dotchin reported for camp prior to the 2018-19 season, the Lightning terminated his contract, citing a material breach of contract. It was later reported that Dotchin had shown up to camp extremely out of shape and was not fit for game action. Dotchin did sign with the Anaheim Ducks but played only 20 NHL games that year before seeing only AHL action in 2019-20. He sat out from professional hockey entirely during the COVID-stricken 2020-21 season before signing with Kladno last year.
Dotchin scored 21 points in 50 games this past season with Kladno and tallied 98 penalty minutes as well. He scored an additional goal and four assists in five qualification games to help Kladno stay in the top-tier Czech league for one more season. He’ll remain a core part of that Kladno team for the foreseeable future, possibly alongside former NHL stars Jaromir Jagr and Tomas Plekanec, who were both active for the club last year. Regardless, considering Dotchin will be 30 at the expiry of the contract, it likely marks a clear end to his NHL career.
When did the Czech Republic become “Czechia” and why?
“The main difference is in what situations and how these two types of country names should be properly used. We are convinced that Czechia should follow the established international norm of how other countries with short names use them. In short, the use of the formal name (the Czech Republic) should be limited to international treaties and the diplomatic protocol.
In all other situations, including the everyday speech, media, sports, schools, academia, administration, written documents etc., Czechia should be used. It’s not an accident that it is mainly internationally unrecognized and fictitious states or dictatorial regimes that use exclusively formal names in an attempt to increase their legitimacy. Recently, this has included the People’s Republic of Donetsk, the Republic of Artsakh, the Republic of Srpska, the Republic of Logone and, of course, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The Dominican Republic and the Central African Republic are the only two countries in the entire world that do not have readily available geographic short names. Czechia is not in the same category since it has a short geographic name that has been internationally standardized and recognized since 2016.”
One stop shopping. Thanks.
I assumed it was fairly recent but I definitely missed it.
I think this previous World Juniors was the first time they officially requested to be referred to as Czechia.