Most games Jiří Holík (319) Most points Josef Maleček (285) Appearances 16 (first in 1920) | Top scorer Josef Maleček (216) Appearances 42 (first in 1930) | |
Best result Gold: 6 (1947, 1949, 1972, 1976, 1977, 1985)
Silver: 10 (1961, 1965, 1966, 1971, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1979, 1982, 1983)
Bronze: 14 (1933, 1938, 1955, 1957, 1959, 1963, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1981, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1992) | ||
The Czechoslovakia men's national ice hockey team was one of the world's premiere teams for the duration of its existence.
Contents
The successor to the Bohemian national ice hockey team, which was a European power prior to World War I, the Czechoslovak national team first appeared at the 1920 Summer Olympics, two years after the creation of the state. In the 1940s, they established themselves as the best team in Europe, becoming the first team from the continent to win two World Championships (1947 and 1949). After the arrival of the Soviet Union on the international hockey scene in the 1950s, the Czechoslovaks regularly fought Sweden and Canada for silver and bronze medals, but sometimes beat the Soviets. In total, they won the gold medal six times.
Due to the split of the country Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the team was disbanded and replaced in 1993 with the Czech and the Slovak national teams. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) recognized the Czech national team as a successor of Czechoslovakia national team and kept it in the top group, and the Slovak national team was demoted to Pool C (Slovakia got into the Top Division very early in 1996).