IIHF – Brotherly but divided

When the players of the Czech and Slovak U20 teams at the 2023 IIHF World Junior Championship were born, they were born in separate countries. On this day 30 years ago, the Velvet Divorce – the peaceful split-up of Czechoslovakia – became reality. In the midst of the World Juniors.

Because the countries were split during the 1993 IIHF World Junior Championship in Sweden, it caused the IIHF, organizers, the team and its players a trivia-worthy situation.

The team went into the tournament representing Czechoslovakia, with juniors coming from both parts of the country.

The offence was led by David Vyborny, born in the Czech city of Jihlava, and the late Pavol Demitra from the Slovak city of Dubnica, who died in the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash in September 2011.

The team’s top defender was Jan Vopat from the Czech city of Most. His promising career in the NHL ended early due to a rare skin illness and he started working as an NHL scout in 2005. Frantisek Kaberle just had one point, but kickstarted a long and successful career on the blueline. Igor Murin from the Slovak city of Trencin was the goalie.

After losing to Finland 5-2 and defeating the United States 6-5, the Czechoslovaks lost the third game in Gavle to host Sweden 7-2. A 1-1 tie against Russia on 30 December 1992 was the last international ice hockey game for Czechoslovakia.

When the players gathered for New Year’s Eve, it was not a normal celebration. Although they continued the tournament as one team, the players were suddenly from two different countries from then on.

“That was very tough. At that time, we had a very tight group,” the late Demitra told IIHF.com in an interview published in May 2011. “I remember after the New Year, we’d won a couple of games, and then they didn’t play our national song anymore. That was very weird.”

With the Velvet Divorce, politicians from then-Czechoslovakia wanted to separate the two brotherly nations and leave the Czechoslovak past behind them. It had brought glory in hockey, but it was also mentally connected with tough decades for the people under communism and Soviet control.

It was a self-determined separation that ended the more-than-six-decades-long history of a country that was created following the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The peaceful way it was done makes the people speak proudly about the separation, especially in comparison with other post-communism break-ups like the wars in former Yugoslavia or the…