At the same time, the championship in 1985 did not develop promisingly for the Czech team. In the basic group, he had to win the last duel against Sweden, otherwise he would not even look at the final group. “If you were sitting in the locker room before the game, you would have heard a pin drop there. We were knocking each other, we were under enormous pressure,” Richter recounted.
But the national team did not hesitate on the ice. He scored two quick goals, calmed down. In the end, they managed the duel with the Swedes with a ratio of 7:2 and penetrated into the four-member final group. Then he didn’t hesitate. He defeated the Soviet Union 2:1, inflicted an 11:2 debacle on the United States and in the last battle defeated Canada led by Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman and Ron Francis 5:3. Then Jiří Šejba flashed a hat-trick.
Hit with former hockey player and coach Pavel RichterVideo: Sport.cz
Pavel Richter has won gold only once, but he also has three silver medals and one bronze from the World Championships. He won another silver at the Olympic Games in Sarajevo in 1984. He thus experienced many key moments in the national team. For example, during the championship in 1983 in West Germany.
The domestic team was so strong at the time that it even defeated the Soviet Union in the preparation, and it was the Czechoslovaks who were playing against the Federal Republic of Germany at that time to advance to the final group. “The night before we played the Soviet Union in Düsseldorf and the next day from three o’clock the Germans in Munich, 600 kilometers away,” Richter described the vicissitudes of the championship at that time.
Fatigue showed, the Czechs were leading 3:1, but the FRG managed to equalize and force the pressure. “A few seconds before the end, Jirka Králík was hit by a bullet. He didn’t see anything, I was standing about thirty numbers next to him and it hit him on the end of the hockey stick. Sometimes you have to have a huge handle to handle those key moments,” Richter added of his memory of the championship, which ultimately ended with a silver medal.
