The year 1996 brought independent Czech hockey its first gold from the WC, but also an educational lesson in the form of a total failure at the World Cup. Only then came the truly golden times.
It started with a triumph at the hockey tournament of the century in Nagano, then followed a golden hat-trick in the form of three consecutive world championships. Martin Ručinský recalled them in Nosičé ledu.
Go through the main topics covered in the interview.
How Lindros broke his collarbone
Martin Ručinský made his national team debut at the Canada Cup in 1991. It didn’t turn out very well for him, however, during the match against Canada, Eric Lindros caused him a severe concussion and broke his collarbone after a hard hit. “It was the biggest concussion I’ve ever had, but I remember it very well. It was in Montreal and I know I woke up in a hospital somewhere a few hours after it happened. I don’t remember much right after it happened. They asked me where I was from, where I was, and I didn’t know a lot of things. And I know that I had a terrible headache,” he recalls of the consequences of the collision with the Canadian star.
Photo: ČTK, Getty Images, Seznam Zpravy
Ice Bearers
Ice Bearers podcast series by hockey historian and member of the design committee of the Czech Hockey Hall of Fame Tomáš Kučera, in which he presents the most interesting moments of the rich Czech and Czechoslovakian hockey history and interviews those who created this history directly on the ice. Released as a Water Bearer bonus series.
Worst tournament of his career
After the gold medal from the World Championships in Vienna in 1996 came a big slap, but it turned out to be very important. In the same year, at the end of August, the first edition of the World Cup was played, which continued the tradition of the Canada Cup. The Czech national team entered the tournament not only as a team of world champions, but additionally strengthened by stars from the NHL, in which Jágr, Nedvěd, Holík, Ručinský and others had grown in the meantime. Three big defeats and especially the last 1:7 against Germany meant a shameful end after the basic group. It turned out that only a team can win, not a set of stars.
“We didn’t play together at all, we didn’t play as a team, we played there as about 23 individuals and we completely burned out,” Ručinský recalls of the worst tournament of his extremely long and successful career. “But I agree that it was the right educational slap for us, when we then realized that you can’t play like this. If we want to win something together, we will have to think a little differently.”
Stories from the history of hockey
Foto: Getty Images
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List News has prepared a series of articles on the history of hockey championships. Where was hockey passion born, when were the Czechs champions? Unknown stories from the history of this sport.
Golden hat trick
At the World Cup in Germany in 2001, the Czechs completed a golden hat trick for the first time in history. No other country in the playoff era had accomplished anything like that before or since. That makes the whole achievement more valuable. “The big turning point was at the Olympics in Nagano, because there we learned how to win, we came up with the right recipe, that was the main turning point. After that we knew how to do it and just moved from one World Cup to another. Of course, sometimes it didn’t turn out to be gold, but I think that our generation wore those medals, you could say, practically all the time, even though we were always only interested in the gold one, we weren’t very interested in the others,” he looks back at the golden era from the turn of the century Martin Ručinsky. Since he last wore the national team jersey (2015), the Czechs have brought home only one medal from a major tournament, namely the bronze from the 2022 WC in Finland.
About the “Czech mafia” in the New York Rangers
“Czech Mafia” was the name given to a group of Czechs in the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1990s and in the New York Rangers after 2005. One of the main members in both cases was Jaromír Jágr, and just when Jágr was in Rangers, Ručinský also joined the team: “That one year there were about eight of us and I felt like I was in a Czech cabin because they were playing Czech songs. They spoke Czech there, Jarda was there, he pulled it all together, and in the end we played well. No one could tell us anything. There was a great group, even the guys who weren’t Czech. I also remember that season very fondly.”
You can also listen to the entire interview in the audio version in the Nosiči ledu podcast:
Ice Bearers
Sound design: David Kaiser
Podcast series Seznam Zpráv, in which Tomáš Kučera describes the most interesting moments of our rich hockey history and interviews those who were personally present at the greatest successes.
Every Thursday – from 21.3. – to be heard as a bonus episode of the related podcast Nosiči vody on Podcasty.cz, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast apps.
Feedback is welcome at the e-mail address [email protected].
