Heika: Why Stars fans will fall in love with first-round draft pick Radek Faksa

By MIKE HEIKA
Staff Writer
mheika@dallasnews.com

Radek Faksa is a lot older than 18. The Stars’ first-round draft pick and his family had to make a very tough decision when he was young, and it was one that made the center grow up quickly.

Faksa’s parents were divorced, and he was living with his mother and two siblings, struggling to make it in Opava in a poor area of the Czech Republic. There was little chance for him to play high level hockey there, but the team in Trinec (about 50 miles away) said it would put him up in a hotel and feed him two meals a day if he wanted to play there.

He was 11.

Faksa took the opportunity, lived in a tiny apartment by himself, and somehow gutted it out for