As a sport originally played on naturally frozen surfaces, ice hockey has traditionally been strong in the Nordic countries, especially in Finland. It is far and away the country's most popular team discipline and attracts the largest numbers of spectators. It is also the first discipline in Finland to have become clearly professional at the top level.
As is the case with sport generally, ice hockey is now in the throes of a major transition. Amateurism was finally laid to rest at
the Atlanta Olympics and the power of that awesome trinity sport, business and media (mainly television) was clearly demonstrated. The interplay between these three forces is becoming more clearly anchored in modern top-level sport with every day that passes.
Ice hockey is strongly positioned within this development of sport. Having long ago been transformed from an outdoor game to one played in comfortable halls on a relatively small rink, it is very telegenic. In addition to that, it boasts all of the features of good sports entertainment: speed, force and aggressiveness, individual virtuosity and the tactical refinements of a team game.
In the European countries where ice hockey has traditionally been strong, the burgeoning role of business and media has forced the sport to adjust to new circumstances. Following the so-called Bosman case concerning transfer rights
in football, the European Union has also put an end to transfer payments made to ice hockey clubs, forcing those in, especially, Sweden and Finland to revise their entire strategies. Those are the countries in which the sport is particularly strong at the junior level, just as it used to be in the former Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia.
In the other European ice hockey countries, whose national teams never do well in world championship competitions, league games nevertheless attract at least as many spectators as in, for example, Finland, where this is the most popular discipline of sport. However, potential TV audiences are vastly greater than in the Nordic countries with their small populations. Naturally, this aspect affects the willingness of the business world to cooperate.
That has brought us to the present situation, which in Finland's case could be described (somewhat simplistically) as follows: hard work on the junior level is producing an abundant crop of good players to meet the needs of richer clubs in bigger European countries. The same situation has existed for a long time in relation to North America. The absolute cream of players from Russia, the Czech Republic, Sweden and Finland are attracted to the professional National Hockey League, in which European players represent a bigger and bigger proportion each year.
Today, Czech ice hockey suffers from a mass exodus of its best players to foreign leagues, especially to the NHL. Among the most famous players are J. Jagr, D. Hasek, M. Straka, R. Holik, R. Reichel, M. Rueinsky and V. Vujtek. V. Nedomansky, J. Holecek, V. Martinec, I. Hlinka.
J. Jagr and D. Hasek are among the most famous Czech ice hockey players.
In Norway 1999 The Olympic champions Czech Republic is also the ice hockey world champions as they defeated Finland in the final on over time after 16 min. 32 sec. On Saturday the Czech Republic defeated Finland 3-1. On Sunday Finland defeated the Czech Republic 4-1.
At the St. Peterburg 2000 won Czech Republic ICE HOCKEY WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP 2000 as they defeated Slovakia 5-3 in the final.
Průvodce 
