Vladimír Bednář

"Blindsided, they were, for sure, they learned their lesson from Grenoble. There was no big tactic. There were two things: delaying the game terribly, being late to the bullpen, and exchanging the stick. Even though they were tapping the faceoff spots: 'Come on, he wants to throw it.' And the referee was there, he waited for us to arrive and then he threw it. They were out of rhythm. But what was important was to play to the body, to finish the players. They always say, 'You have to have brutality against technique.' We used that, and the ref didn't blow the whistle. He was spreading his arms, they were enraged. The end of that game, both the first and the second, was that the special proclamation or the anthem that raised the flag finished and the Russian team was on the red line and the Czech team was at the half. And there we gathered in a chorus, and we went into that tunnel, into the dressing rooms. The Russians stayed there, they didn't know what was happening. Nobody had ever dared to do that before. It was a mad fuss. I know that Coach Pitner buck-passingly explained that the losers shake hands with the winners. But it still wasn't easy. And the same thing happened again in the second game."

"So the atmosphere was fantastic because everyone knew that the whole nation stands behind us. They knew we had done a great job in Grenoble, so they wanted to see the Russians get beaten. That's what happened, those were two unbelievable games, even though I didn't play the first one, I only played in the second one. We felt as if we were normally in Prague. Both the spectators and the referees, just everything was playing for us and wanted to see those Russians conquered.

"The arrival was fantastic, we landed at the old Ruzyně airport. When we looked out the window, there was an incredible amount of people. They wouldn't even let us get to the terminal. We got off at the runway and took a bus from the runway to the terminal, where they made an aisle, and we walked down the aisle. The ovation was insane, the people were completely thrilled. I was the last one to go, the youngest one, we had uniforms, these coats with epaulettes. By the time I got to the terminal, I didn't have the epaulettes on anymore, it was like walking through a tunnel. Then they congratulated us, perhaps even Himl came. The strange thing was that we took our props and, 'Go home!' They were scared, they didn't want to let us go to Prague, lest there be something like Aeroflot again. I got an official, he took me on a train, but it was three hours away. I wanted to go home very quickly, so he took me to the city exit so I could hitchhike home. We hitchhiked for half an hour, nobody stopped. 'Come on, let's go back.' He drove me to the train station, and then I took the fast train to Pilsen. Nobody was waiting for me there. I took the bag on my shoulders, luckily, we lived near the square, I took it home, and I was the happiest." - "Did you notice when you came back that in Pilsen, but anywhere, a lot of the roads and the columns of the houses were painted with the numbers 2:0 and 4:3? Did you have that anywhere near your house, and when you walked by, what kind of feelings did that evoke in you?" - "The second game, when it was played, my mom walked around the backyard because we lived downstairs, and she couldn't watch it. My dad was consuming some beer. After the game, the crowd came to our street, in front of our house, and chanted our name. They grabbed my dad and took him to the square, so he celebrated with them too."

"Dad, that was a special family. We didn't get along with each other very well. My father's schedule was that he would go to work in the morning, eat, sleep and go to the pub, and he would want to pour something in the bottom of a pint. There were months when Mom had to dig deep into her pockets to feed us. And so she had to start working as a helper and cleaner at the school. I was the one who paid the price for that because I became a street kid. After school, I was out of control, crawling through cellars, attics, various nooks and crannies. It also happened that our flat was next to the city centre and next to the city centre was the ice rink. During one of my rummaging there, I suddenly came across a bunch of people with skates. They were going to the ice rink and had skates in their hands and around their necks. So I figured there was some free skating, came home and urged my mom for about 14 days if she would be so kind as to buy me skates. So we took the plunge and bought leather boots at Baťa, ankle boots with buckles. We went into the sports section. My mom bought proper skates. They were schleifs, memorable for the zigzag you had to pull. She went to the first skate with me. It looked like I stepped on the ice and felt it up a bit. I mostly watched the other kids skate. After a few minutes, I understood what to do. So I ran, put my feet together and kept going. I stopped against the curb. After that, I free-skated and found a second home instead of hanging out on the streets. It was the ice rink."