12/16/98
Sarah: Where are you from?
Peter: Slovakia.
Sarah: Where exactly?
Peter: From Martin. It is my hometown.
Sarah: So is hockey big there?
Peter: What do you mean big there?
Sarah: Popular.
Peter: In Slovakia, yeah. It is popular, a very popular sport.
Sarah: Can you tell me about your family?
Peter: Okay, I have two brothers and one sister. One brother plays hockey. He is better than me. Let me see. He is young; he is only 14. He is a captain in my home town.
Sarah: That is good. Can you tell me about yourself?
Peter: What about myself?
Sarah: What do you like to do?
Peter: Sometimes I like to play hockey.
Sarah: Not always?
Peter: Not always. Sometimes after the season I like to play soccer or tennis or some other sport for conditioning. I like going to the gym, lifting weights. I like foods.
Sarah: You like what?
Peter: Good foods. I mean a meal.
Sarah: Okay.
Peter: My favorite meal is here, fettuccine Alfredo. It is my pre-game meal.
Sarah: That is my favorite.
Peter: Yeah?
Sarah: I love fettuccine Alfredo. Fattening, but good.
Peter: I don’t know. Everybody in the locker room, they told me I am fat. I still say to the team that I am not fat.
Sarah: Fat?
Peter: Yeah, I am not fat. I weigh 205 lbs. Look at Jensen; he has a huge stomach. Five months he did nothing. Now he can play.
Sarah: So have you enjoyed Des Moines?
Peter: Oh, yeah. It is not too big, not too small.
Sarah: What do you enjoy most about being a Buc?
Peter: Enjoy? Here is so, well, all the scouts. They can see me here. In Slovakia it is different. It is like sometimes it is only a coach for a national team. He come to my town and look for some players, and there is no scouts. But here is different. More scouts, more college scouts.
Sarah: Do you want to play college hockey?
Peter: Maybe, maybe. I mean, I see the USA teams as some of the best.
Sarah: Where did you play before this?
Peter: Before this? I played in my hometown, Martin.
Sarah: All right. What was it like playing there? Is it a lot different than this type of hockey?
Peter: It is, yeah, it is a different system. It is more, it is more. Here you guys play with more body, more power, more harder.
Sarah: More physical?
Peter: More physical, yeah. A lot of the guys, it is like, it is more think. It is like a system. Here you guys pass, and pass, and pass. It is a different system here. Not real big difference, but different.
Sarah: How did you become a Buc? How did you get to play here?
Peter: I was watched here. I played in Canada, in Winnipeg. No, wait a minute, in Camrose. I played for a Slovakian national team. They saw me, some college coach and he told Scott Owens. Scott Owens sent us some papers for camp, and that is it.
Sarah: The rest is history.
Peter: Yeah.
Sarah: Do you miss home?
Peter: The first two months were hard. Now it is okay.
Sarah: Do you find a lot of differences from being here than being home?
Peter: Not really. It is probably the same thing here.
Sarah: Do you have a nickname?
Peter: Yeah. It is a Russian name, from a movie.
Sarah: Okay.
Peter: It is Gusto. The guy was like me. Some guy from my team in Martin, he said you are Gusto. This nickname I have had for maybe nine years, eight years.
Sarah: Do you have a most stressful moment?
Peter: Maybe today. If I don’t have a Canadian visa. Cause tomorrow I leave to Winnipeg, Toronto and I have not still a Canadian visa.
Sarah: What would you like the fans to know about you? What would they be surprised to know?
Peter: Here? Surprise the fans? In my hometown it was, every game the same thing. Thirty five hundred, forty hundred people at the game. Here it is the same thing. Very good fans here.
Sarah: Okay, so you like the fans?
Peter: Yeah.
Sarah: Okay. All right, anything else?
Peter: No.
Sarah: Well, then I will let you go. Thanks!
