A fresh-faced kid, at age 20, Gustav Bubnik scored the game winner
in the 1949 World Championships. Destined for hockey greatness, he never achieved it as a player.
Miraculously, he survived to coach a new generation of Czech Hockey players that, in 1972, would defeat the hated Soviets in Prague to win the World Championship. That hockey game restored the pride of a nation and marked the beginning of the end of Soviet domination..
Within months, in an incredible miscarrege of justice, he found himself standing in a Soviet Cold War show trial. Convicted of treason, he was sentenced to 15 years mining uranium in a Soviet slave labor camp—a virtual death sentence. The entire team shared his fate.
The players were released after serving five years of their sentence as several had already died and the Communist autorities were at a loss as to how they could explain to the world how every member of their World Championship team had died. Those that survived were broken men—except Gus Bubnik. Within the sanctity of hockey locker rooms,
he began to spread the truth about what at happened to the World Champions. Agustin Bubnik was a one man truth squad and eventually, the entire nation knew the true story.
Until his death in 2017, Bubnik was a revered member of Czech society who was elected to serve in Parliament.
The horrors of
Jáchymov. it is
estimated that
over 100,000
prisoners died
there.
A continuing series profiling unknown players from long ago featured in MLRH Film's CrossCzech...
