Before he heads to the rink for games, Adam Novotny always kisses a Cristiano Ronaldo jersey.
“Ronaldo is my favourite athlete of all time, honestly,” the Peterborough Petes left winger explained. “I just love him so much. He’s a soccer player, but I love his mentality and his lifestyle and everything.”
Novotny felt drawn to Ronaldo while watching him play for Real Madrid against Lionel Messi and Barcelona in El Classico. Everyone was picking a side in the rivalry and the native of Kobylice, Czechia became fixated on Ronaldo.
“I have Ronaldo’s book,” the 18-year-old said. “I have Ronaldo’s underwear. I have Ronaldo’s, like, basically everything. I bought a Portugal jersey with Ronaldo on the back, and I kissed it once for some reason. I don’t know why. Then I had a really good game, so I was, like, ‘Okay, I need to do this every time.’ That’s how it started.”
The superstition has kept going even after a washing-machine mishap left the number seven peeling on the back of the jersey.
Novotny is projected to be a first-round pick in the NHL draft later this month with TSN director of scouting Craig Button ranking him 23rd on his latest list. He has attempted to incorporate parts of Ronaldo’s routine on the road to the draft.
“You see a lot of stuff on social media,” Novotny noted. “His recovery and just how he’s eating and his lifestyle. [It] motivates me when I see how hard he works and how much he needs to put in.”
Novotny’s prep paid off at the NHL Scouting Combine where he performed well in several fitness tests including finishing third in the isokinetic squat and completing the most pull-ups.
“I was the last guy who was going through all the testing,” Novotny recalled. “I went to the pull-up station and was like, ‘What’s the record today?’ They told me 17. And they were like, ‘We want to see 18.’ I was like, ‘Okay, I got you.’ I was pretty confident that I can do 18. I knew I can do 18.”
Although the 6-foot-1, 205-pounder needed to adjust a bit. The way pull-ups were measured at the combine was a bit different than how he did it in training.
“You have to stop for a second when up,” he said. “And then you have to stop for one second down. I always did normal [continuous] pull-ups. I was like, ‘I better do 18.’ I was so motivated. I did 18. I tried the 19th. It was pretty close.”
The day before the test, Novotny saw on social media that the all-time record for pull-ups at the combine was 19 set by Los Angeles Kings prospect Jack Hughes in 2022.
“I was like, Wow, if I’m going to tie or maybe break that, it’s going to be really cool.”
But Novotny couldn’t quite get it done.
“After my 18th, I kind of stopped for a little bit, for like two seconds, and you can’t do that,” he said. “The guys started shouting that you have to go up. I was going up and I was actually really close. I tried to kind of help it with my legs a little bit, but my arms just said, ‘No, not today.’ It was actually really close.”
Novotny was proud to lead the 2026 field, but not completely satisfied.
“So close, but so far,” he said, shaking his head. “When I finished, I was so happy, but so mad. I didn’t know what my emotions were. I won the test in my year, but I was so mad. But it’s also so cool to be in the all-time record as second overall.”
Earlier in the week, Novotny went through a mental workout as he interviewed with 26 different teams. The New York Rangers threw him off with an unexpected request.
“I get a paper with numbers from 1 to 100,” he said. “They’re just randomly placed on a paper and you have to find one. When you find one, you find two and three, four, and you have just 30 seconds. So that was pretty intense. I didn’t do it too well. So, yeah, it was a little bit frustrating ... Maybe they just wanted to see us work out things under pressure. So that was a cool test for sure.”
In terms of the actual questioning in the interviews, one team asked Novotny what animal he is most like on and off the ice.
“I was not prepared for this question at all,” he admitted with a smile. “My brain just went blind and I didn’t know what to say. I was thinking for like 10 seconds and I was like, okay, I have to say something. I can’t just stare at them and not say anything. I said that I have a small aquarium and it’s always so happy and positive, and that’s kind of me all the time. So I just said, ‘I’m like fish in an aquarium.’ They just start laughing a little bit. I don’t know if it’s the right answer, but that was the only thing that came to my mind.”
How about on the ice?
“I said I’m like a panther,” Novotny revealed. “I like to hunt the puck. So that was my answer. Hope I was not that bad.”
The combine is important, but Novotny also made a statement with his play this year. He scored 34 goals and added 31 assists in 58 games during his first season in the Ontario Hockey League. He finished second overall with 278 shots on goal.
Novotny, who models his style on that of former Pete Mason McTavish, also helped Czechia win a silver medal at the World Juniors in Minnesota.
“Great year,” he said. “I’m so glad I came to Peterborough. It just gave me a lot of experience, experience with the North American style. It was not easy for sure to start, but it was really good for me that I just, throughout the time, was getting better.”
Novotny played parts of the previous two seasons with Mountfield HK, which is part of the top professional league in Czechia.
“First time away from your family, from your home, and in a different country and playing in Canada, and in my draft year,” he said. “It helped me a lot because I was on the ice more and I actually could show what I can do, you know, when I play in North America.”
And if a Canadian team calls his name in Buffalo later this month, Novotny would welcome the chance to continue his journey in the hockey-mad country.
“I know how big hockey is in Canada and how passionate the people are in Canada,” he said. “So it’d be cool. You can feel the passion every time you go, everywhere you go. Even in Peterborough, people just recognize you on the streets and it’s a hockey town. It’s just so cool how big hockey is in Canada and, yeah, I love that there.”
