Ice hockey in Czechoslovakia
 Ice hockey in Czechoslovakia
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| Association: | Czechoslovak Ice Hockey Federation |
| Founded: | November 15, 1908 (as the Bohemian Ice Hockey Federation ) |
| IIHF member since: | November 15, 1908 |
| 1st World Cup participation: | 1920 |
| 1st OL participation: | 1928 |
| First international match: | |
 Canada 15: 0 Czechoslovakia April 24, 1920 in Antwerp |
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| Medals won: | |
| WM: | 6 × gold, 10 × silver, 14 × bronze |
| Olympia: | 4 × silver, 4 × bronze |
Ice hockey was a popular and popular sport in Czechoslovakia . The Czechoslovak national ice hockey team was one of the best teams in the world.
history
On November 15, 1908, the Bohemian Ice Hockey Association was founded in Zurich, which was also a founding member of the IIHF . The Bohemian national ice hockey team was one of the top nations in the early years of ice hockey in Europe with two titles at European ice hockey championships . From 1920, Czechoslovakia took over membership and a Czechoslovak national ice hockey team was formed.
In 1938, the 12th Ice Hockey World Championship was held in Prague , in which the Czechoslovak team came third. In 1947 they were again the organizer of the 14th edition of the tournament , where they won the world championship title for the first time. The title was defended at the ice hockey world championship in Sweden in 1949 ; the year before the team had won silver at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz .
In 1950 the national team, whose players were considered to be the “golden generation” after previous victories, suffered a bitter setback: Shortly before they left for the 1950 Ice Hockey World Championship in London , 11 players from the national team were arrested. In a show trial they were sentenced to imprisonment or work in a uranium mine for alleged espionage, high treason and desertion. After five years, the condemned were pardoned by President Antonín Zápotocký . - This approach had seriously damaged the sport, it wasn't until 1961 that a title was won again at a European championship for the first time.
However, the special role played by popular ice hockey in the country at the time should not be underestimated: many citizens saw the cause of their personal misfortune in the USSR and the Soviet political system that was forcibly imposed on their country. Sports competitions were the only relatively safe places in the socialist brother country where spectators could show not only emotions but also political views. As a result, dissatisfaction, which could not be openly shown, usually emerged at sporting events. As a result of the foreign occupation after the Prague Spring , the majority of the Czechoslovak population felt humiliated and wanted by all means to make their attitude towards the "occupiers" clear, to get revenge for "August 1968". The clash between the national team and the USSR at the ice hockey world championship in 1969 was correspondingly tense : in the first game on March 21, they won 2-0. The team refused to shake hands after the game. The following game, on March 28th, was brutally tough and won 4-3. The cheers of the team and their fans knew no bounds. Before the start, some players had stuck the red star on their shirts in protest . A protester also landed on the ice with a poster that read “We are not afraid of the Soviets, now we will return the favor”.
At the 1972 ice hockey world championship in their own country, they won the world championship title for the third time. The same happened in 1976 and 1977.
At the 1978 World Cup in Prague , they finished second. They expected to win the third title in a row, as they played in their own country and the team was in top form at that time. However, the final against the USSR was lost 3-1. This is probably one of the reasons why there were no massive anti-Soviet protests after the end of the tournament, although provocations on and off the ice were not absent. At the beginning of the 1990s, the duels with the USSR became less explosive due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Also because the supremacy of the USSR in ice hockey was no longer given.
On January 1, 1993, the Czechoslovak Federation dissolved and the two sovereign states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia emerged. Successor associations in the respective states were the Český svaz ledního hokeje ( German Czech Ice Hockey Association ) and the Slovenský zväz ľadového hokeja ( German Slovak Ice Hockey Association ) with the newly formed Czech national ice hockey team and Slovak national ice hockey team .
The IIHF decided that the Czech national ice hockey team would become the sporting legal successor to the Czechoslovak national ice hockey team. The main reason for this was that the national team had a smaller number of Slovak players until 1992: a quota was used to ensure that there were always more Czechs than Slovaks in the national team.
There was a special feature at the U20 World Cup taking place at the turn of the year 1992/93 , in which the Czechoslovak junior national team took part. She played the tournament as a team of the Czech and Slovak Republic to the end and took third place.
League system
The 1st league or semi-officially 1st national ice hockey league ( Czech 1st celostátní hokejová liga , Slovak 1st celoštátna hokejová liga ) was the top division in Czechoslovak ice hockey between 1936 and 1993, which played out the title of Czechoslovak ice hockey champion.
During the Second World War and the defeat of Czechoslovakia, the Central Bohemian Ice Hockey Club held its own Bohemian Ice Hockey Championship in 1938/39 during the 1938/39 season, after the first division was temporarily suspended the previous year. In the following seasons to the end of the war were parallel Cup Bohemia and Moravia ( German Mistrovství Cech a Moravy im) Bohemia Bohemia and Moravia and the Slovak Hockey League ( Slovak Slovak league ) in the Slovak Republic played.
Below the first league in 1953 with the second league introduced the second division. There were promotions and relegations between the 1st and 2nd league, with the promoted and relegated players being determined either directly or via relegation games.
From 1963, the 2nd league was played in four regional groups, with Group D being played as a purely Slovak group. The four group winners played two promoted teams in the promotion relegation.
In 1969, the game operation in the 2nd division was reformed and two separate divisions were established for the Czech and Slovak parts of Czechoslovakia. These were referred to as 1. Česká národní hokejová liga ( German 1. Czech National Ice Hockey League ) and 1. Slovenská národná hokejová liga ( German 1. Slovak National Ice Hockey League ), with the latter originating from group D of the 2nd league. For the promotion round, the champion of the 1st SNHL, the first two relay runners of the 1st ČNHL and the runner-up in season A of the 1st ČNHL qualified.
In the course of the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the formation of Slovakia and the Czech Republic , independent league systems were newly formed for the respective countries.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Lothar Martin: Ice hockey - national sport in the Czech Republic. In: EAST-WEST. European perspectives. Renovabis solidarity campaign of German Catholics with the people in Central and Eastern Europe, April 2013, accessed on January 9, 2017 (online version of the article from issue 04/2013 of the magazine).
- ↑ a b c Michail Pozumenščikov: The smooth ice of the "Prague Spring" . Sport in the history of Soviet-Czechoslovak relations. In: Association for the promotion of research into the consequences of conflicts and wars (ed.): Prager Frühling . The international crisis year 1968. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2008, The Soviet Society and the "Prager Frühling", pp. 879–893 ( online excerpt from Google Books [accessed January 9, 2016]).
- ↑ Urs Berger: How brotherly love became rivalry. In: hockeyfans.ch. Retrieved January 6, 2017 .
- ^ Marc Rohde: History: Ice hockey in Slovakia. In: LIVE-Wintersport.com. November 12, 2007, accessed January 6, 2017 .
- ↑ avlh.sweb.cz, season 1963/64 (PDF; 69 kB)
- ↑ avlh.sweb.cz, season 1969/70 (PDF; 83 kB)