Josef Maleček

Josef Maleček was one of the most prominent and versatile Czechoslovakian sportsmen of his time. He played ice hockey for a number of clubs – Sparta Praha (1914-27), LTC Praha (1927-43), where he had his most successful period, and later Vysokoskolsky SK and, as a player coach, Slovan Bratislava. With LTC, Maleček won five consecutive Czechoslovakian titles from 1931-35 and formed one of Europe’s best forward lines together with Karel Hromádka and Jirí Tožicka, leading the club to eight consecutive national titles from 1931-38. After the German occupation Maleček added another four titles with LTC, winning the championship of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1940, 1942-44). With him, LTC also won the prestigious Spengler Cup four times. In 1941 he changed his preferred position from forward to defense.

Altogether Maleček played 107 international games between 1920-39, scoring 114 goals. He won three European titles (1922, 1925, 1929) and was the leading scorer four times. At eight World Championships between 1930 and 1939, he led Czechoslovakia to two bronze medals in 1933 and 1938. Maleček represented Czechoslovakia at 14 World and European Championships and three Olympic Winter Games – 1924, 1928 and 1936. Maleček is universally considered the best pre-War European player. Statistics currently attribute currently 1,708 goals in 684 games to him. He was considered the first 1,000 goal scorer in ice hockey and was attributed with over 250 hat tricks.

Maleček was an accomplished track athlete and played first league football for Sparta Praha. He represented Czechoslovakia internationally in hockey (field) and tennis. In tennis, he played Roland Garros in 1933 and was on the 1929 Davis Cup team but did not play. Maleček was also a high level cyclist and golfer. He was successful in running one of Czechoslovakia’s most popular stores for sporting goods in the center of Praha, and later opened a second store in Bratislava.

In 1948, after the Communist takeover, Maleček used a Peruvian passport to leave Czechoslovakia. Because of his fame, the border guards recognized him but allowed him to pass. He then served as a player-coach in Switzerland (HC Davos, Crans-Montana) and Germany (Krefeld), and also worked as a tennis coach concurrently. Maleček ended his playing career in Zürich in 1954 at the age of 51 and his coaching career in 1956 in Hannover. He then went to New York where he served as a sports broadcaster for Radio Free Europe, and lived on Long Island, where he died of heart failure in 1982. More than 20 years later Maleček was inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2003.