Czech veteran Roman Červenka defies age, signing through 2028. His elite scoring and leadership ensure continued national team impact.
Czech forward Roman Červenka, 39, has signed a contract extension with Dynamo Pardubice that will keep him with the team until 2028, the Extraliga club announced on Thursday. He will be 42 when the contract ends.
Červenka has been captain of the Czech national team for the past four seasons. He is 12th in all-time scoring at the IIHF World Championships with 91 points in 105 games. He was the IIHF Male Player of the Year for the 20234-24 season.
Červenka originally signed as a free agent with Pardubice in the summer of 2024. He had 65 points in 65 Extraliga regular-season and playoff games last season, and so far has 19 points in 14 games this season.
“Roman Červenka is still clearly one of the best players in the entire Extraliga and he’s also valid at top national team events,” said Pardubice GM Petr Sýkora. “He continues to prove to us all that he’s a huge contributor to the team even at an advanced hockey age, and we’re very happy that he will continue with us.”
Born and raised in Prague, Červenka is a product of the Slavia club, with whom he played until 2010, when he signed with the KHL’s Avangard Omsk, where he was a linemate of Jaromír Jágr. Never drafted by an NHL team, Červenka signed as a free agent with the Calgary Flames in 2012. In a lockout-shortened season, he recorded 17 points in 39 games before returning to the KHL with SKA St. Petersburg.
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Červenka has also had stints with Czech-based KHL team Lev Prague and Piráti Chomutov in the Czech Extraliga, and spent eight seasons in Switzerland with Fribourg-Gottéron, the ZSC Lions and the Rapperswil-Jona Lakers. Internationally, in addition to his extensive World Championship résumé, Červenka has represented Czechia at four Winter Olympics and at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.
Červenka will turn 40 in December, but he is nonetheless projected to be on the Czech Olympic team in February. Due to a minor injury, he isn’t currently on the Czech team at the Euro Hockey Tour tournament in Finland, but he’s expected to play at next month’s tournament in Switzerland.
Czechs have lots of options for 2026 Olympics
It's often difficult to know what to expect from the Czechs, who can produce wildly different results depending on which players are in their lineup. They surely have some elite talent and then a lot of rather mediocre depth players on both sides of the Atlantic that almost seem interchangeable. For that reason, predicting their roster is a bit of a guessing game. If Radim Rulík remains head coach through the 2026 Winter Olympics, he might stick with the team that gelled very nicely at the 2024 IIHF World Championship and won gold on home ice, especially with the Olympics on a wider European ice surface.