🇨🇿 Czechia 5-3 Slovakia 🇸🇰
World Championship Gold Medal Game
Ice Palace, Saint Petersburg 🇷🇺
Sunday, 14 May 2000

Proving that breakups of countries don’t have to result in bloodshed, Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 01 January 1993, an event sometimes called the Velvet Divorce.

In terms of ice hockey, the dissolution of Czechoslovakia meant that the Czech Ice Hockey Association took over the position of former Czechoslovakia while Slovakia was considered a “new” hockey nation. As a result, the Slovaks had to start from scratch in the IIHF World Championship program and work their way up through the divisions.

They started at the very bottom in 1994 – Pool C – and gained immediate promotion to Pool B after winning that level easily. They also finished on top of the secondary level in 1995 and earned the next promotion, this time to the elite Pool A, in 1996, in Vienna, Austria. But the steady improvement of the new national team program didn’t stop there. The Slovaks – with players such as Zdeno Cíger, Pavol Demitra, Žigmund Pálffy, and Miroslav Šatan – finished 10th in 1996, 9th in 1997, 7th in 1998, and 7th again in 1999 leading to the 2000 World Championship in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The Slovaks finished fourth in the qualifying round which pitted them in the cross-over quarter-final against a strong Team USA, the surprise winner of the other group. Slovakia defeated the Americans 4-1 and followed this up with a stunning 3-1-win over Finland in the semis. Incredibly, after only six years as an independent nation, Slovakia was in the World Championship final – against the Czech Republic!

More important, the meeting of these two independent nations in 2000 proved the strength of the old Czechoslovak hockey program which had produced two, world-class national teams, despite their relative smallness to other hockey powers. Slovakia’s population was only five million, and the Czech Republic ten million.

Everybody who was present at the Saint Petersburg Ice Palace on 14 May 2000, felt the history and emotion of the moment when the two teams took the ice for the Gold medal game. The final itself was somewhat of an anti-climax. The Czechs, with a much more solid team approach to strategy, jumped to a 3-0-lead in the first period, had a 4-1 lead at the start of the third, and settled for a 5-3-victory, their third Gold in as many years (including the 1998 Olympics in Nagano).

But the result was of secondary importance. The Czechs and Slovaks proved – both as nations and as hockey programs – that political and geographic separation have to be neither painful nor bloody to be successful, and by maintaining a civilized manner, both continued to prosper and develop world-class players.

BOXSCORE
1st Period
01:40 – 🇨🇿 PEN – Buzek, cross checking
06:04 – 🇨🇿 GOAL – Sýkora (Procházka, Varaďa)
07:25 – 🇨🇿 PEN – Buzek, roughing
09:34 – 🇨🇿 GOAL – Vlasák (Buzek)
12:25 – 🇨🇿 GOAL – Procházka (Vlasák, Reichel)
13:17 – 🇨🇿 PEN – Čajánek, holding
13:52 – 🇸🇰 PEN – Višňovský, cross checking
14:10 – 🇨🇿 PEN – Buzek, tripping
17:00 – 🇸🇰 PEN – Sekeráš, tripping

2nd Period
25:52 – 🇨🇿 PEN – Kučera, high sticking
27:43 – 🇸🇰 PP GOAL – Štrbák (Suchý, Pucher)
30:07 – 🇸🇰 PEN – Lašák, slashing
30:07 – 🇨🇿 PEN – Varaďa, unsportsmanlike conduct
31:01 – 🇨🇿 PEN – Buzek, 10 min. misconduct
31:01 – 🇨🇿 PEN – Sýkora, roughing / cross checking double minor
38:08 – 🇨🇿 PEN – Martínek, roughing

3rd Period
43:35 – 🇨🇿 GOAL – Tomajko (Dopita, Výborný)
45:28 – 🇸🇰 PEN – Lašák, slashing
50:33 – 🇸🇰 PEN – Štrbák, slashing
55:22 – 🇸🇰 GOAL – Hlinka
57:28 – 🇸🇰 GOAL – Šatan (Bartečko)
58:58 – 🇨🇿 GOAL – Reichel (Sýkora, Prospal)

GOALTENDERS
W: 🇨🇿 Čechmánek (30-33)
L: 🇸🇰 Lašák (10-15)

SHOTS ON GOAL
🇨🇿 7+4+4 = 15
🇸🇰 10+12+11 = 33

ROSTERS
🇨🇿 Goaltenders: Roman Čechmánek, Dušan Salfický. Defence: Ladislav Benýšek, Petr Buzek, František Kučera, Radek Martínek, Michal Sýkora, Martin Špaňhel, Martin Štěpánek. Forwards: Michal Broš, Petr Čajánek, Jiří Dopita, Martin Havlát, Pavel Patera, Martin Procházka, Václav Prospal, Robert Reichel, Jan Tomajko, Václav Varaďa, Tomáš Vlasák, David Výborný.
🇸🇰 Goaltenders: Ján Lašák, Pavol Rybár. Defence: Zdeno Chára, Ivan Droppa, Stanislav Jasečko, Peter Podhradský, Ľubomír Sekeráš, Martin Štrbák, Radoslav Suchý, Ľubomír Višňovský. Forwards: Ľuboš Bartečko, Peter Bartoš, Michal Handzuš, Miroslav Hlinka, Michal Hreus, Ľubomír Hurtaj, Richard Kapuš, Ján Pardavý, Vlastimil Plavucha, Peter Pucher, Miroslav Šatan, Ľubomír Vaic.

Article Credit: IIHF 100 Top Stories of the Century
Photo Credit: SME.sk – IIHF – HHOF – IOC