Bubnik, Augustin

Augustin Bubnik was born on November 21, 1928 in Prague .

He began his career as a hockey player in 1936 in the junior team of the strong capital club “ LTC Prague ”, later joined the main team and in the period 1945-1950 invariably became the champion of the Czechoslovak hockey league.

At this time, Bubnik was actively involved in the national hockey team of Czechoslovakia . So, in 1948, he won the right to defend the country's honor at the Winter Olympic Games in St. Moritz - Czechoslovakians defeated all rivals except Canada, with which they drew, and took second place, losing to Canadians only in terms of goals and goals. Thus, Bubnik received a silver Olympic medal, as well as a gold medal of the European championship played here. In 1949, he and his team won the World Championships (and Europe) in Sweden .

Bubnik was supposed to defend his champion title at the next World Cup in the UK , however, after the government decided not to take part at the last minute (the reason was the refusal of a British visa to radio commentator Otakar Prokhazka), most of the members of the team were arrested right in the restaurant, where they gathered to discuss this event and, according to the investigation, conducted anti-government conversations on suspicion of planning to escape from the country (a year earlier several players of “LTC Prague” already fled to the Spengler Cup in Davos ). The hockey player, along with another 10 members of the national team, was charged with espionage, treason, undermining popular democratic principles and sentenced to 14 years in prison. In conclusion, he worked at the uranium mines in Jáchymov . In 1955, he was granted pardon under an amnesty and was released, and soon he was able to continue his sports career ^[1] .

In 1955-1962, Augustin Bubnik went to the ice in such clubs as Spartak Brno, Olomouc and Slovan Bratislava , where he spent the last four seasons of his career. At the same time, he was never called up to the Czechoslovak team again. I was forced to end the career of a player due to a back injury.

From 1966 to 1969 he held the position of head coach of the national team of Finland , becoming the first Czechoslovak coach to head the national team of another country. He made a significant contribution to the development of Finnish hockey, spent a total of 69 matches as the team leader, including led the team at the World Championships in Austria , where he managed to beat Czechoslovakia. Returning to his homeland, in the 1970s and 1980s he coached the Czech club Zetor Brno . He was involved in the Czech team as an assistant to the head coach.

He is a member of the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame (2004) and a member of the Czech Hockey Hall of Fame (2008).

In later years, he proved himself as a politician, participated in the 1998 parliamentary elections from the Civil Democratic Party and eventually won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies , where he was a member of the committee on science, education, culture, youth and physical education. He was also successful in the 2002 elections , remaining in parliament for another term. In 2010, he ran for the Czech Senate from the European Democratic Party, but this time did not get enough votes.

He died on April 18, 2017 in Prague at the age of 88 years ^[2] .

• Gustav Bubnik - Olympic statistics at Sports-Reference.com
• Augustin Bubnik - statistics on The Internet Hockey Database
• Augustin Bubnik (English) - biography and statistics on the site Eliteprospects.com