Vladimír Nadrchal

"We had a couple of preseason games before the Squaw Valley games. We played Minnesota against a varsity team, young guys, pumped up. I got hurt in the last period. I got my hockey stick thrust in my left eye - a big bloody gash, a big surprise when the red dripped off me. Of course, I didn't finish the game, they took me to the hospital. I was in a special room by myself. They put me on a bed, two sandbags next to my head, so I couldn't move my head. I stayed there. I didn't speak English, just thank you, thank you, and banal things. I stayed there alone. The team's schedule was fixed and agreed upon, and it got to the point where the doctors decided I had to stay there for a few days. So I stayed in the room, and my team left for the next tour without me. They left me there and - keep in touch with the doctors, and when the time comes, someone will come for you. I stayed there for three days, lying in solitary confinement. Then it got better, and I must add that the staff were receptive. They discovered a nurse somewhere who spoke Slovak, and I didn't have to guess to pick out from the menu with my finger. She read it to me. I was there for about three days."

"My arrival in Brno was connected - I somehow skipped this - with the death of my father. I had a draft order. I don't know what day, but it was the same day as my father's funeral. My enlistment took place in such a way that around noon, my father had his cremation, and then there was a lunch with the family. After lunch, I got into a car, not mine, I didn't have one. An acquaintance drove me to Brno to the ice rink, and I played a game from six. If somebody did that today, everybody would stone them, but at that time, the situation was like this, that I didn't even try to ask for some kind of a postponement, which I probably would have gotten. But I didn't try it. I accepted that I could do it, and I did it. I only got my uniform the next day. That's how I was transferred to Brno."

"During my third or fourth year, I developed problems with my lungs, and I was under thorough examinations. The diagnosis was a finding on the lungs, so the disease was labelled. I had to interrupt my compulsory school attendance. They placed me in Košumberk, that's a town about twenty kilometres outside Chrudim, where there was a sanatorium for those affected by lung disease or bad breathing, for treating lung diseases. They actually moved me there, I thought I would be there for a month or two. But it turned out to be two years, I didn't miss school. The treatment consisted of rest and fresh air. And in the afternoon, there was bread and dog lard. It had a good effect on the trouble I had with my lungs, they said. I did my two years there just fine and was discharged with the result that the doctors advised me to avoid sports with lots of exertion. In short, no running, no big events. I had a lot of problems because I was in a group of friends who were the same age and played hockey."