Jaroslav Jiřík

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CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia  Jaroslav Jiřík Ice hockey player
Date of birth December 10, 1939
place of birth Vojnův Městec , Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
date of death July 11, 2011
Place of death near Brno , Czech Republic
Nickname Brambor
size 180 cm
position Left wing
Shot hand Left
Career stations
1951-1961 Sokol Kladno
1961-1969 TJ ZKL Brno
1969-1970 St. Louis Blues
Kansas City Blues
1970-1975 TJ Zetor Brno

Jaroslav Jiřík (* 10. December 1939 in Vojnův Městec , Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ; † 11. July 2011 in Brno , Czech Republic ) was a Czechoslovak ice hockey player , who 15 years for TJ ZKL Brno in the top division of Czechoslovakia as a right winger played and participated in nine world championships with the Czechoslovak national team . He was the first Eastern Bloc player in the National Hockey League when he played three games for the St. Louis Blues during the 1969/70 season . Between the end of his active playing career and his death, he worked as an ice hockey coach and players agent.

Career as a player

Jaroslav Jiřík started his career in 1957 in the offspring of Sokol Kladno . In 1956, at the age of 17, he made his debut in the top division of the ČSSR. In the following four seasons he played Kladno and developed into an accurate striker before moving to Brno to Rudá Hvězda Brno in 1961 .

In the following five years he became a Czechoslovak serial champion with Brno . Jiřík was characterized by an unusual style of play for European players, in that he mostly waited in front of the opposing goal for goalkeeper ricochets in order to then sink them into the goal. In the season 1968/69 he was the top scorer in the league with 36 goals.

Due to his unconventional playing style, Jiřík also drew the attention of North American scouts, so that he was signed by the then Assistant General Manager of the St. Louis Blues , Cliff Fletcher , in 1969 . In addition to Jiřík, Fletcher initially signed Jan Havel and Josef Horešovský , as these three had received permission to play abroad. Ultimately, however, the Czechoslovak government decided that only Jiřík was allowed to leave the country, as Havel and Horešovský were considered too young for that. Before the 1969/70 season, Jiřík took part in the Blues training camp, but did not make the jump into the NHL squad, but completed almost the entire season in the farm team, the Kansas City Blues , from the Central Hockey League . He scored 35 points scorer in 53 games before coming to three appearances in the NHL just before the playoffs. He got a contract offer for the following season, but instead returned to Brno in 1970.

He played for ZKL Brno until the middle of the 1974/75 season before ending his playing career. He scored a total of 300 goals in 450 games in the Czechoslovak League, including 242 goals in 362 games for Brno.

International

In addition to his successes at club level, Jiřík was a regular for the Czechoslovak national team in the 1960s. He took part in a total of nine world championships and three Olympic ice hockey tournaments, in which he won a total of 11 medals, but never became world champion. At the Winter Olympics he won a silver ( 1964 ) and a bronze medal ( 1968 ). At the ice hockey world championship in 1965 , Jiřík was also appointed to the all-star team . He played a total of 134 games in the national jersey, in which he scored 83 goals.

Career as a coach

Jiřík gained his first experience as a coach in the 1968/69 season when the head coach of ZKL Brno, Slavomír Barton , fell seriously ill in October 1968. The ZKL team council then chose Jiřík as player-coach, who led the team on the ice for the next two months. In December of the same year, a new coach was signed with Josef Štock.

After finishing his playing career Jiřík was immediately assistant coach at ZKL Brno, before he took over the team as head coach in October 1975. He held this position until 1977, but since Brno only finished eleventh and thus reached the worst placement of the club in a long time, Jiřík was dismissed. Between 1977 and 1980 he was head coach of the Swiss national team .

When the TJ Zetor Brno in 1980 relegated to the second-class 1. NHL (Czech National League), Jiřík was brought back to Brno and he led the team back to the top division. In February 1982 he resigned as head coach of TJ Zetor Brno and coached the club's juniors from then on. In the 1984/85 season Jiřík looked after the TJ Škoda Plzeň and in 1987/88 the SV Graz . He then moved to EV Stuttgart , which he coached between 1989 and 1991. Between 1992 and 1994 he was the head coach of AC Nitra , with whom he was promoted to the Slovak extra league. In 1994 he returned to Brno and became a junior coach again before taking over the men's team again between November 1995 and February 1996.

From 1997 Jiřík worked as a players' agent and agent, where he looked after Ladislav Šmíd , Stanislav Balan, Josef Duchoslav, Zdeněk Blatný and Vratislav Čech, among others .

Jiřík died on July 11, 2011 in an ultralight plane crash near Brno.

Achievements and Awards

Career statistics

league Seasons Games Gates Assists Points Penalty minutes
1st League 17th 450 300 105 1 405 -
NHL 1 3 0 0 0 0
CHL 1 53 19th 16 35 11

1 Incomplete statistics for assists and penalty minutes

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SZYMON SZEMBERG: First Czech NHLer dies at 71. In: iihf.com. July 11, 2011, accessed November 1, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b Jaroslav Jiřík at legendsofhockey.net (English)
  3. ↑ a b c d e internationalhockeylegends.blogspot.com, International Hockey Legends: Jaroslav Jirik
  4. ↑ Miloslav Jenšík: Historie hokejové ligy, sezona 1968-1969. In: hokej.cz. Retrieved November 1, 2017 .
  5. ↑ hckometa.wz.cz, # 16 Jaroslav Jiřík - Statistics ( memento of the original from October 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hckometa.wz.cz
  6. ↑ sportovci.cz, Profile Jaroslav Jiřík ( Memento of the original from December 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sportovci.cz
  7. ↑ hckometa.wz.cz, Trenér - Jaroslav Jiřík  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.hckometa.wz.cz  
  8. ↑ historie.hokej.cz, Jiří Novák: Osobnost - Jaroslav Jiřík ( Memento from March 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ Zemřel první Čech v NHL Jaroslav Jiřík. Pilotoval letadlo a zřítil se
personal data
SURNAME Jiřík, Jaroslav
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jirik, Jaroslav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech ice hockey player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH December 10, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Vojnův Městec , Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
DATE OF DEATH July 11, 2011
Place of death Brno , Czech Republic