Career would to Marián Gáborík (44) many a hockey player could be envious. In the national team, he won bronze at the under-18 and under-20 world championships. He made his debut for the representative A-team on November 7, 1999 at the age of less than 18. In the senior team, he represented Slovakia at several World Cups, Olympic Games and World Cups. He played a total of 53 national team matches, in which he scored 20 goals. Pre however, he admitted that he cried because of hockey. And not once.
He was in tears in the dressing room after the painful loss for the bronze medals in Vancouver, which baffles the Slovaks to this day. “We messed it up ourselves with fouls and unnecessary mistakes, we lost 3:5. Fourth place is amazing in hindsight, but it was one of the hardest moments of my career at the time. It was hard to swallow, and it was actually one of the two times I cried because of hockey.” said the native of Trenčín to the Czech media.
The second case is related to junior selection. “When we played for salvation against Ukraine at the Junior World Championships. I’ve been to the twenties twice, the first time we won bronze and then this. We lost the first game of the series against the Ukrainians, it was only decided in the third for raids. Thank God we saved it. I was a young boy and this was a brutal career experience. It wasn’t easy,” he added.
Marián Gáborík was born on February 14, 1982 in Trenčín. He was not far from hockey, because his brother Branislav Gáborík, nine years older, won the title of champion of Czechoslovakia in 1992 as a player for Dukla Trenčín. He started playing hockey shortly after entering elementary school, but in addition to that he also played handball. Marián Gáborík finally decided to play hockey at the age of 11, after returning from a tournament in Buckingham, Canada.
He recorded rapid performance growth and on March 13, 1998, at the age of 16 years and 27 days, he already made his debut in the senior team of Dukla Trenčín. He also spiced up the premiere with a goal, which he contributed to a 3:3 draw on the ice of Liptovský Mikuláš. For a long time he held the record of the youngest scorer in the highest Slovak competition. It wasn’t until 2021 that Banská Bystrica forward Dalibor Dvorský surpassed him at the age of 15 years, 7 months and 18 days.
Gáborík also made a historical record in 1999, when at the age of less than 17 he won bronze at the Under-20 World Championships. In the same year, he also brought a bronze medal from the world championship of players under 18 years of age. He played two seasons for Dukla before going overseas. In the second, in 1999-2000, he played in 55 matches, in which he scored 26 goals and recorded 23 assists.
With his performances, he attracted the attention of the overseas club Minnesota Wild, who chose him from the 3rd place in the draft in 2000. He played in the NHL in the following season 2000/2001 and in 71 duels he collected 36 points for 18 goals and the same number of assists. In the year 2001/2002, he already conquered the 30-goal goal, which he achieved a total of seven times while playing in the overseas professional league.
He was only 21 years old when he was nominated for the NHL All-Star Game for the first time in 2003. He won the speed skating competition when he circled the ice rink in 13.713 seconds. He appeared at the prestigious event twice more and in 2012 he was declared the most valuable player of this exhibition.
In 2003, he was a major contributor to Minnesota’s run to the Western Conference Finals. In the playoffs, he collected 17 points for nine goals and eight assists. He wore the Minnesota jersey with the captain’s badge in the 2007/2008 season, in which he also scored a career-high 42 goals. In this season On December 21, 2007, he scored five goals in one game against the New York Rangers.
He equaled his career high of 42 accurate hits in the 2009/2010 season, but already in the jersey of the New York Rangers. He spent four seasons in the club from Manhattan. In 2013, he started working for the Columbus Blue Jackets, from where he moved to to the Los Angeles Kings club, with which he won the Stanley Cup in 2014 after winning the final series with the New York Rangers. With 14 goals, Gáborík became the top scorer of the playoffs.
After five seasons in California, he headed to Ottawa during the 2017/18 season, where he played 16 games and scored seven points on four goals and three assists. However, he did not finish the year due to back problems. He has not appeared in a competitive match since March 2018. He spent the last three years on the injured list.
Marián Gáborík, NHL gunner, nicknamed Gaby, or Potato, officially ended his sports career on November 4, 2021. In the NHL regular season, he played a total of 1,035 games with a balance of 407 goals and 408 assists. In 84 playoff games, he scored 58 points for 32 goals and 26 assists. He has been married since 2017. His wife is the well-known dancer Ivana Gáborík, born Surovcová. They raise two daughters together – Bella and Leia.
