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Jumping For Joy—July 19, 2024 - VOL. 77, Issue. 14 - Carol Schram

“WHOEVER DOESN’T JUMP ISN’T Czech. Jump, jump, jump!”

That’s the English translation of the chant that accompanies the bouncing frenzy that Czech hockey fans whip up during games. The capacity of Prague’s O2 Arena is just over 17,000. When everyone inside is jumping, Prague-based sports journalist Luke Fisher says the earth literally moves. “If you’re on the top tier, you can definitely feel it shake,” he said.

On May 26, the Czechs’ 2-0 World Championship win over Switzerland in the gold-medal game could have brought the roof down once and for all. To say the fans were fired up would be a massive understatement.

A Prague resident for the past seven years, Fisher said the official fan zone outside the arena began filling up by early afternoon on gold-medal day – hours ahead the 8:20 p.m. puck drop. Viewing parties around the country, including at Prague’s famous Old Town Square, were also filled to capacity.

After two scoreless periods, with the Czechs holding a 23-17 edge in shots, Pavel Zacha, who was playing in his first World Championship, described the atmosphere inside the arena to TSN’s Lindsay Hamilton: “It’s really loud out here. The fans are incredible. We just have to go and win it for them tonight.”

The low score came as no surprise, as the final was a battle between the event’s two best defensive teams. Captained by star D-man Roman Josi, the Swiss had surrendered just 15 goals in their first nine games. Veteran goalie Leonardo Genoni led the tourney with a .941 save percentage.

Meanwhile, the Czechs had given up 17 goals in nine games as Lukas Dostal, then 23, claimed the starter’s job over veterans Petr Mrazek and Karel Vejmelka. Dostal went into the gold-medal game with a .929 SP and two crucial shutouts, in the tournament-opening 1-0 shootout win over Finland and the Czechs’ 1-0 quarterfinal victory over the high-scoring United States.

The jumping started early in the tournament finale. But when the game was still deadlocked through 40 minutes of play, the jubilant energy turned more tense. “For about five minutes into the third period, the Swiss were getting there,” Fisher said. “You could sense that everyone was getting nervous.”

Seven minutes into the third period, the Swiss momentum hit a wall in the form of winger Ondrej Palat. He laid a thunderous defensive-zone hit on Switzerland’s Andrea Glauser that cracked the plexiglass along the right-wing boards. During the six-minute pause while a new pane was installed, the fans jumped and shouted while David Pastrnak, who had been held pointless since arriving from Boston in time for the final game of the round-robin, relaxed on the bench with his helmet off, sweaty hair characteristically askew.

At the Swiss bench, Josi huddled his teammates to remind them how close they were to bringing home gold for the first time in tournament history.

When play resumed, the Czechs brought the thunder. A Radko Gudas hipcheck upended Andres Ambuhl in front of the Swiss bench, inciting a chant of, “We want a goal!”

Then, with 10:47 remaining in regulation, it came. Taking an offensive-zone faceoff after an icing, Zacha won the draw cleanly back to Libor Hajek on the left point. Hajek fed it along the blueline to his defense partner, Tomas Kundratek, who wired a seam pass to the left faceoff dot. Pastrnak was wide open for the one-timer. As Josi attempted a desperation kick save, the puck rocketed over Genoni’s right shoulder.

Pastrnak slid to center ice with his arms in the air. “I told myself I would never, ever celebrate on my knees,” Pastrnak said. “I didn’t even know there were so many emotions that could be brought out of me, but you know what? I was crazy.”

The golden goal was Pastrnak’s 30th point in 32 games over five World Championships. His hat trick that lifted the Czechs to an 8-4 win over Team USA in the 2022 bronze-medal game in Finland had already conferred legend status upon him, but this goal made him an instant national hero.

The Swiss kept pressing. But after David Kampf outraced Josi to tap the insurance goal into an empty net with 19 seconds remaining, the bedlam hit maximum volume.

This year’s event set a tournament-record 797,727 attendance figure. That beat the previous mark by more than 50,000, which came the last time the worlds were held in Czechia in 2015. That year, the locals settled for a fourth-place finish. But the entire fortnight was a tribute to local hero Jaromir Jagr, the Triple Gold Club member who earned tourney MVP honors with a six-goal, nine-point output in his final national-team appearance in his 10th worlds at 43.

After he’d been inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame earlier in the day, Jagr fittingly presented Pastrnak with his player-of-the-game award for the final, before the medals were handed out. “Pastrnak is arguably the millennial and Gen-Z Jagr,” Fisher said. “To have that photo of the two of them, I thought it was quite cool.”

The only holdover from the Czechs’ last gold, in 2010, captain Roman Cervenka then hoisted the trophy aloft amid a sea of gold confetti.

Dostal also collected some individual hardware, being named top goaltender by the IIHF Directorate and in the media awards voting.

The gold medal bumped the Czechs up four spots in the IIHF’s world rankings, to fourth place.

That helps fuel the nation’s excitement for Italy in 2026, where NHL players will compete on the Olympic stage for the first time since 2014. This generation would love nothing more than to add a 21st-century Olympic gold to go along with the Jagr/Hasek-era triumph from Nagano in 1998.

After witnessing this year’s euphoric celebration in Old Town Square, Fisher is keen to see more. “I can’t think what they’ll do if they win the Olympics if this is what they do when they win the worlds,” he said.