Ladislav Troják

Ladislav Troják was a Slovakian but played his entire senior club career, which lasted from 1934-48, for LTC Praha in Czechoslovakia, after starting as a junior with HC Košice. He competed at both the 1936 and 1948 Winter Olympics, winning silver in 1948, the only Czechoslovakian ice hockey player to compete at the Olympics both before and after World War II, and the first Slovakian to compete for Czechoslovakia in ice hockey at the Olympics. Troják also played at the World Championships in 1937-39 and 1947, helping the team to their first ever gold medal in 1947. After the 1948 Winter Olympics he tragically died young, along with six other members of the Czechoslovak national team, when their plane crashed into the English Channel on a flight from Paris to London. In 2002 he was inducted into the Slovakian Ice Hockey Hall of Fame. In his honor, the arena where HC Košice plays was re-named the Ladislav Troják Stadium.