Additions
Missing All-Star Teams
I´ve checked a few editions of Československý sport (8-page daily sport newspaper) to get some data I couldn´t find elsewhere and I´ve stumbled across the Czechoslovak All-Star teams from 1978 and 1979. Československý sport published the All-Star teams only for 1977-78, 1978-79 (no all-star teams in 1977 and 1980´ Československý sport editions have been published), so even though they don´t say it explicitly, it does seem like this initiative was a temporary substitute by the writers when the Gól magazine stopped publishing All-Star teams after 1977 for reasons unknown and since 1980, TIP magazine started to conduct a poll among coaches for their Best player-at-each-position award. One important distinction: unlike all the other All-Star teams, these from 1978 and 1979 are based solely on the domestic league performances.
1977-1978:
Journalists watching and reporting at each game were giving a vote for a player who showed “extraordinary or excellent performance”. Newspaper published the “Unit of the week” every Thursday. Two rounds have been played in one week, so these Units were based on the quality of play in two consecutive games. Article continues by listing players who appeared on the “Units of the week” at least once.
Goaltenders:
Holeček – 6 times named the best goalie of the week
Crha, Králík, Sakáč, Kapoun, Dzurilla – 2
Podešva, Plánička, Brož, Krása, Hovora – 1
Right Defensemen:
Bubla – 9
Suchý – 4
Kajkl, Zajíček, Figala – 2
Vejvoda, Kaberle – 1
Left Defensemen:
Pospíšil – 7
Dvořák – 6
Chalupa, Lyčka – 2
Horáček, Horešovský, Vlček, Kužela – 1
Right Wingers:
M. Šťastný – 5
V. Lukáč, E. Novák – 4
Veith – 2
Caldr, Martinec, Slavík, Černík, Ulrych, Richter – 1
Centers:
P. Šťastný – 6
Hlinka – 4
Nový – 3
Kokrment, J. Novák – 2
Havlíček, Mařík, Augusta, Holáň – 1
Left Wingers:
Pouzar – 6
Ebermann – 3
Jiří Holík, Pěnička, Svozil – 2
Bauer, Neuwirth, Augusta, Richter, Pavlík, A. Šťastný – 1
Number of appearances at the “Units of the week” has not been a determining factor of the All-Star teams however. Československý sport chose instead the second possible criteria, that is the number of times a player´s performance being declared as “extraordinary or excellent” after the game over the course of season that contained 44 rounds. Using this method, article then lists the Československý sport´ official 1st, 2nd and 3rd All-Star Teams of the 1977-78 season.
1st All-Star Team:
Holeček (26 votes out of 44 max. possible) – Bubla (26), Pospíšil (24) – M. Šťastný (23), Hlinka (26), Pouzar (27)
2nd All-Star Team:
Kapoun (21) – Kajkl (22), Dvořák (19) – E. Novák (18), P. Šťastný (22), Ebermann (24)
3rd All-Star Team:
Crha (20) – Zajíček (16), Lyčka (11) – V. Lukáč (15), Nový (21), Richter (18)
1978-1979:
The system is the same. All-Star teams are based on a number of “extraordinary or excellent performance”. Article this time does not list the number of a player´s appearances at “Units of the week”. Three All-Star teams are listed again. Anomaly is that the 1st team actually has 7 players – both Vladimir Martinec and Marian Stastny had 34 extraordinary league performances recorded, which was the best record of all players that season (and also significantly better than any player´s record previous season), so the Československý sport proceeds by saying that to prefer one would be unjust to the other. Hence two RWers in the 1st All-Star team. Unfortunately, only Martinec and Stastny here are listed with their amount of extraordinary performances, the rest of players are not.
1st All-Star Team:
Králík – Kužela, Dvořák – M. Šťastný and Martinec, P. Šťastný, A. Šťastný
2nd All-Star Team:
Sakáč – Bubla, Bukovinský – Fryčer, Nový, Pouzar
3rd All-Star Team:
Hrabák – Kaberle, Ďuriš – V. Lukáč, Svozil, Jaško
Missing Save Percentages
I went through game reports of WHC 1979 and 1976 where the number of saves of each goalie each game is written. Subsequently, I calculated SV% of every goalie who played. In theory, I should be able to gather this data from every 70s championship, possibly further down into early 60s.. but it will definitely take some time.
WHC 1979 Goalies:
1. Jim Craig (USA): 5 G / 11 GA / 133 S / 0.9236 %
2. Vladislav Tretiak (USSR): 7 G / 12 GA / 140 S / 0.9211 %
3. Vladimir Myshkin (USSR): 2 G / 2 GA / 21 S / 0.9130 %
4. Sigmund Suttner (W. GER): 7 G / 21 GA / 210 S / 0.9091 %
5. Jorma Valtonen (FIN): 4 G / 11 GA / 103 S / 0.9035 %
6. Jiří Králík (CSSR): 6 G / 17 GA / 126 S / 0.8811 %
7. Antero Kivelä (FIN): 4 G / 16 GA / 110 S / 0.8730 %
8. Henryk Wojtynek (POL): 8 G / 40 GA / 270 S / 0.8710 %
9. Jim Rutherford (CAN): 6 G / 24 GA / 162 S / 0.8710 %
10. Sune Ödling (SWE): 2 G / 8 GA / 54 S / 0.8710 %
11. Erich Weishaupt (W. GER): 2 G / 10 GA / 62 S / 0.8611 %
12. Marcel Sakáč (CSSR): 4 G / 15 GA / 89 S / 0.8558 %
13. James Warden (USA): 4 G / 17 GA / 100 S / 0.8547 %
14. Pelle Lindbergh (SWE): 6 G / 38 GA / 220 S / 0.8527 %
15. Ed Staniowski (CAN): 3 G / 19 GA / 85 S / 0.8173 %
16. Henryk Buk (POL): 1 G / 2 GA / 5 S / 0.7143 %
WHC 1976 Goalies:
1. Vladimír Dzurilla (CSSR): 2 G / 1 GA / 41 S / 0.9762 %
2. Jiří Holeček (CSSR): 8 G / 13 GA / 214 S / 0.9427 %
3. Vladislav Tretiak (USSR): 10 G / 19 GA / 257 S / 0.9312 %
4. Mike Curran (USA): 5 G / 15 GA / 177 S / 0.9219 %
5. William Löfqvist (SWE): 4 G / 9 GA / 102 S / 0.9189 %
6. Erich Weishaupt (W. GER): 8 G / 24 GA / 235 S / 0.9073 %
7. Göran Högosta (SWE): 6 G / 20 GA / 188 S / 0.9038 %
8. Andrzej Tkacz (POL): 10 G / 39 GA / 339 S / 0.8968 %
9. Jorma Valtonen (FIN): 10 G / 41 GA / 326 S / 0.8883 %
10. Peter LoPresti (USA): 5 G / 27 GA / 177 S / 0.8676 %
11. Wolfgang Kraske (E. GER): 6 G / 27 GA / 156 S / 0.8525 %
12. Roland Herzig (E. GER): 6 G / 25 GA / 124 S / 0.8322 %
13. Anton Kehle (W. GER): 2 G / 17 GA / 76 S / 0.8172 %
14. Henryk Wojtynek (POL): 1 G / 8 GA / 25 S / 0.7576 %
15. Alexandr Sidelnikov (USSR): 1 G / 4 GA / 8 S / 0.6667 %
Other bits and pieces that I didn´t know previously
- Famous game Poland vs. USSR with one of the most shocking results in history (6:4) at WHC 1976 was partially caused by weak goaltending from Sidelnikov. He got 4 goals and then, at 24th minute, was exchanged for Tretiak who finished the rest of the game. Sidelnikov did not play a single minute after and Russian media commentary, cited by Československý sport, implied that no option other than playing Tretiak in all the remaining games is valid and feared of possible Tretiak´s overwork. Playing Sidelnikov again was apparently not given much thought, considering that he couldn´t even stop the Polish forwards.
- Quite disappointing finding about Milan Novy at WHC 1979: played only 5 games, recorded 2 assists, no goal. I thought for sure that he was injured but apparently not. CSSR´s lines were set, Hlinka as a captain and best player previous season led the 1st line with Havlicek and Pouzar, 2nd line was all three Stastny brothers coming of their League title with Slovan Bratislava, and 3rd line was again bet on chemistry – Jiri Novak centering Martinec (both from Pardubice) and Ebermann. Novy could not probably play wing so he remained out the regular lineup as the 10th forward ready to step in. Of all 5 games he was on the ice, he still played only 1 or 2 periods, never full game (mostly on the 3rd line with Martinec and Ebermann). It only surprised me that Novy in the middle of his prime did not have a stable spot in the National Team lineup...
- Swedish Cup ended the 1979-1980 season. Coaches Bukac and Nevesely comments before the tournament revealed some problems with Vincent Lukáč again. Despite winning the goal-scoring race in the League, he was discarded from the National Team until the end of 1980 for “behaviour incompatible with the member of the National Team.” I could not find anything about the incident per se, however even Kosice, Lukac´s domestic team, did not let him play in the last game of the season. Ludek Bukac also said about Lukac that he is in a way the ideal forward whom he wants to coach, says Lukac has perfect technique, is a “weasel on the ice”, but on the other hand Lukac allegedly has not yet found a way to counter the physical play on him and his defensive play lacks more effort: “…when he faces the toughness of an opponent, he´s barely average, and when he´s supposed to backcheck, he´s downright bad.” Lukac indeed missed the WHC 81 and CC 81 but played every major tournament solidly between 1982-1985 and he did win the Golden Stick in 1983. So I guess he eventually made some progress in his overall game.
- Review of the Czechoslovak First League, season 1979-1980, by Československý sport entirely confirms downtrend trend in quality of Czechoslovak hockey. Having read most of 60s and 70s post-season league reviews myself, I can attest that writers generally always expressed positive remarks on increasing quality of the League. But this 1980´ review was the first one where the media wrote their concerns and worries. In the opening paragraph, journalist Pavel Novotný writes that the overall play of the 79-80 League mirrors the results of the Czechoslovak team on international scene (5th place at Olympics, no medal for the 1st time in 13 years). “…the League with its lowering quality only increased the failure that we had encountered in Lake Placid.” And in the last paragraph of the article, Novotný wrote: “What was certainly not good, is as if the results of some games hinted that our top league has been losing its credibility…”
- Finally, I´ve picked up a few Czech newspapers of 50s. In Československý sport, March 1959, I found a few articles reporting about Maurice Richard´s arrival to Prague´s World Hockey Championship. People were ‘all ears’ on Richard, listening and asking him questions about hockey in NHL and Canada for a few hours when the public meeting was set up. Richard could not even answer all the questions due to lack of time. Richard´s generousity and modesty was greatly appreciated by the Czech hockey public, he showed no ‘primadonna manners’ in any way. Perhaps the most interesting part of the article was Richard´s evaluation of the Soviet players. He mentions Sologubov, Alexandrov and Groshev as NHL quality players. Precise citation would be:
M. Richard, march 1959:
“He [Richard] thinks that Sologubov, Alexandrov and Groshev would find a job even in the professional teams.”
Missing All-Star Teams
I´ve checked a few editions of Československý sport (8-page daily sport newspaper) to get some data I couldn´t find elsewhere and I´ve stumbled across the Czechoslovak All-Star teams from 1978 and 1979. Československý sport published the All-Star teams only for 1977-78, 1978-79 (no all-star teams in 1977 and 1980´ Československý sport editions have been published), so even though they don´t say it explicitly, it does seem like this initiative was a temporary substitute by the writers when the Gól magazine stopped publishing All-Star teams after 1977 for reasons unknown and since 1980, TIP magazine started to conduct a poll among coaches for their Best player-at-each-position award. One important distinction: unlike all the other All-Star teams, these from 1978 and 1979 are based solely on the domestic league performances.
1977-1978:
Journalists watching and reporting at each game were giving a vote for a player who showed “extraordinary or excellent performance”. Newspaper published the “Unit of the week” every Thursday. Two rounds have been played in one week, so these Units were based on the quality of play in two consecutive games. Article continues by listing players who appeared on the “Units of the week” at least once.
Goaltenders:
Holeček – 6 times named the best goalie of the week
Crha, Králík, Sakáč, Kapoun, Dzurilla – 2
Podešva, Plánička, Brož, Krása, Hovora – 1
Right Defensemen:
Bubla – 9
Suchý – 4
Kajkl, Zajíček, Figala – 2
Vejvoda, Kaberle – 1
Left Defensemen:
Pospíšil – 7
Dvořák – 6
Chalupa, Lyčka – 2
Horáček, Horešovský, Vlček, Kužela – 1
Right Wingers:
M. Šťastný – 5
V. Lukáč, E. Novák – 4
Veith – 2
Caldr, Martinec, Slavík, Černík, Ulrych, Richter – 1
Centers:
P. Šťastný – 6
Hlinka – 4
Nový – 3
Kokrment, J. Novák – 2
Havlíček, Mařík, Augusta, Holáň – 1
Left Wingers:
Pouzar – 6
Ebermann – 3
Jiří Holík, Pěnička, Svozil – 2
Bauer, Neuwirth, Augusta, Richter, Pavlík, A. Šťastný – 1
Number of appearances at the “Units of the week” has not been a determining factor of the All-Star teams however. Československý sport chose instead the second possible criteria, that is the number of times a player´s performance being declared as “extraordinary or excellent” after the game over the course of season that contained 44 rounds. Using this method, article then lists the Československý sport´ official 1st, 2nd and 3rd All-Star Teams of the 1977-78 season.
1st All-Star Team:
Holeček (26 votes out of 44 max. possible) – Bubla (26), Pospíšil (24) – M. Šťastný (23), Hlinka (26), Pouzar (27)
2nd All-Star Team:
Kapoun (21) – Kajkl (22), Dvořák (19) – E. Novák (18), P. Šťastný (22), Ebermann (24)
3rd All-Star Team:
Crha (20) – Zajíček (16), Lyčka (11) – V. Lukáč (15), Nový (21), Richter (18)
1978-1979:
The system is the same. All-Star teams are based on a number of “extraordinary or excellent performance”. Article this time does not list the number of a player´s appearances at “Units of the week”. Three All-Star teams are listed again. Anomaly is that the 1st team actually has 7 players – both Vladimir Martinec and Marian Stastny had 34 extraordinary league performances recorded, which was the best record of all players that season (and also significantly better than any player´s record previous season), so the Československý sport proceeds by saying that to prefer one would be unjust to the other. Hence two RWers in the 1st All-Star team. Unfortunately, only Martinec and Stastny here are listed with their amount of extraordinary performances, the rest of players are not.
1st All-Star Team:
Králík – Kužela, Dvořák – M. Šťastný and Martinec, P. Šťastný, A. Šťastný
2nd All-Star Team:
Sakáč – Bubla, Bukovinský – Fryčer, Nový, Pouzar
3rd All-Star Team:
Hrabák – Kaberle, Ďuriš – V. Lukáč, Svozil, Jaško
Missing Save Percentages
I went through game reports of WHC 1979 and 1976 where the number of saves of each goalie each game is written. Subsequently, I calculated SV% of every goalie who played. In theory, I should be able to gather this data from every 70s championship, possibly further down into early 60s.. but it will definitely take some time.
WHC 1979 Goalies:
1. Jim Craig (USA): 5 G / 11 GA / 133 S / 0.9236 %
2. Vladislav Tretiak (USSR): 7 G / 12 GA / 140 S / 0.9211 %
3. Vladimir Myshkin (USSR): 2 G / 2 GA / 21 S / 0.9130 %
4. Sigmund Suttner (W. GER): 7 G / 21 GA / 210 S / 0.9091 %
5. Jorma Valtonen (FIN): 4 G / 11 GA / 103 S / 0.9035 %
6. Jiří Králík (CSSR): 6 G / 17 GA / 126 S / 0.8811 %
7. Antero Kivelä (FIN): 4 G / 16 GA / 110 S / 0.8730 %
8. Henryk Wojtynek (POL): 8 G / 40 GA / 270 S / 0.8710 %
9. Jim Rutherford (CAN): 6 G / 24 GA / 162 S / 0.8710 %
10. Sune Ödling (SWE): 2 G / 8 GA / 54 S / 0.8710 %
11. Erich Weishaupt (W. GER): 2 G / 10 GA / 62 S / 0.8611 %
12. Marcel Sakáč (CSSR): 4 G / 15 GA / 89 S / 0.8558 %
13. James Warden (USA): 4 G / 17 GA / 100 S / 0.8547 %
14. Pelle Lindbergh (SWE): 6 G / 38 GA / 220 S / 0.8527 %
15. Ed Staniowski (CAN): 3 G / 19 GA / 85 S / 0.8173 %
16. Henryk Buk (POL): 1 G / 2 GA / 5 S / 0.7143 %
WHC 1976 Goalies:
1. Vladimír Dzurilla (CSSR): 2 G / 1 GA / 41 S / 0.9762 %
2. Jiří Holeček (CSSR): 8 G / 13 GA / 214 S / 0.9427 %
3. Vladislav Tretiak (USSR): 10 G / 19 GA / 257 S / 0.9312 %
4. Mike Curran (USA): 5 G / 15 GA / 177 S / 0.9219 %
5. William Löfqvist (SWE): 4 G / 9 GA / 102 S / 0.9189 %
6. Erich Weishaupt (W. GER): 8 G / 24 GA / 235 S / 0.9073 %
7. Göran Högosta (SWE): 6 G / 20 GA / 188 S / 0.9038 %
8. Andrzej Tkacz (POL): 10 G / 39 GA / 339 S / 0.8968 %
9. Jorma Valtonen (FIN): 10 G / 41 GA / 326 S / 0.8883 %
10. Peter LoPresti (USA): 5 G / 27 GA / 177 S / 0.8676 %
11. Wolfgang Kraske (E. GER): 6 G / 27 GA / 156 S / 0.8525 %
12. Roland Herzig (E. GER): 6 G / 25 GA / 124 S / 0.8322 %
13. Anton Kehle (W. GER): 2 G / 17 GA / 76 S / 0.8172 %
14. Henryk Wojtynek (POL): 1 G / 8 GA / 25 S / 0.7576 %
15. Alexandr Sidelnikov (USSR): 1 G / 4 GA / 8 S / 0.6667 %
Other bits and pieces that I didn´t know previously
- Famous game Poland vs. USSR with one of the most shocking results in history (6:4) at WHC 1976 was partially caused by weak goaltending from Sidelnikov. He got 4 goals and then, at 24th minute, was exchanged for Tretiak who finished the rest of the game. Sidelnikov did not play a single minute after and Russian media commentary, cited by Československý sport, implied that no option other than playing Tretiak in all the remaining games is valid and feared of possible Tretiak´s overwork. Playing Sidelnikov again was apparently not given much thought, considering that he couldn´t even stop the Polish forwards.
- Quite disappointing finding about Milan Novy at WHC 1979: played only 5 games, recorded 2 assists, no goal. I thought for sure that he was injured but apparently not. CSSR´s lines were set, Hlinka as a captain and best player previous season led the 1st line with Havlicek and Pouzar, 2nd line was all three Stastny brothers coming of their League title with Slovan Bratislava, and 3rd line was again bet on chemistry – Jiri Novak centering Martinec (both from Pardubice) and Ebermann. Novy could not probably play wing so he remained out the regular lineup as the 10th forward ready to step in. Of all 5 games he was on the ice, he still played only 1 or 2 periods, never full game (mostly on the 3rd line with Martinec and Ebermann). It only surprised me that Novy in the middle of his prime did not have a stable spot in the National Team lineup...
- Swedish Cup ended the 1979-1980 season. Coaches Bukac and Nevesely comments before the tournament revealed some problems with Vincent Lukáč again. Despite winning the goal-scoring race in the League, he was discarded from the National Team until the end of 1980 for “behaviour incompatible with the member of the National Team.” I could not find anything about the incident per se, however even Kosice, Lukac´s domestic team, did not let him play in the last game of the season. Ludek Bukac also said about Lukac that he is in a way the ideal forward whom he wants to coach, says Lukac has perfect technique, is a “weasel on the ice”, but on the other hand Lukac allegedly has not yet found a way to counter the physical play on him and his defensive play lacks more effort: “…when he faces the toughness of an opponent, he´s barely average, and when he´s supposed to backcheck, he´s downright bad.” Lukac indeed missed the WHC 81 and CC 81 but played every major tournament solidly between 1982-1985 and he did win the Golden Stick in 1983. So I guess he eventually made some progress in his overall game.
- Review of the Czechoslovak First League, season 1979-1980, by Československý sport entirely confirms downtrend trend in quality of Czechoslovak hockey. Having read most of 60s and 70s post-season league reviews myself, I can attest that writers generally always expressed positive remarks on increasing quality of the League. But this 1980´ review was the first one where the media wrote their concerns and worries. In the opening paragraph, journalist Pavel Novotný writes that the overall play of the 79-80 League mirrors the results of the Czechoslovak team on international scene (5th place at Olympics, no medal for the 1st time in 13 years). “…the League with its lowering quality only increased the failure that we had encountered in Lake Placid.” And in the last paragraph of the article, Novotný wrote: “What was certainly not good, is as if the results of some games hinted that our top league has been losing its credibility…”
- Finally, I´ve picked up a few Czech newspapers of 50s. In Československý sport, March 1959, I found a few articles reporting about Maurice Richard´s arrival to Prague´s World Hockey Championship. People were ‘all ears’ on Richard, listening and asking him questions about hockey in NHL and Canada for a few hours when the public meeting was set up. Richard could not even answer all the questions due to lack of time. Richard´s generousity and modesty was greatly appreciated by the Czech hockey public, he showed no ‘primadonna manners’ in any way. Perhaps the most interesting part of the article was Richard´s evaluation of the Soviet players. He mentions Sologubov, Alexandrov and Groshev as NHL quality players. Precise citation would be:
M. Richard, march 1959:
“He [Richard] thinks that Sologubov, Alexandrov and Groshev would find a job even in the professional teams.”