Valentin Claireaux signs for HC Vitkovice in the Czech Republic

On Tuesday, the Rouen Dragons announced the departure of Valentin Claireaux (32), striker for the France team, who had arrived in Normandy six months earlier, after a long career outside France (mainly Finland and the Czech Republic, between 2014 and 2022). Claireaux will not be long without a club. On Wednesday, he signed at HC Vitkovice for a year.

It will be his fourth Czech club, after spells at Zlin, Dynamo Pardubice and BK Mlada Boleslav, from 2019 to 2022. This season, Vitkovice – a team based in Ostrava, one of the two host cities of the next Worlds – has finished second in the Championship regular season, before being eliminated in the semi-finals. In Extraliga (Czech D1), Valentin Claireaux played 133 matches for 23 goals and 65 points.