Room 16 – Jaroslav Jiřík
Room 16 - Jaroslav Jiřík
DESCRIPTION OF THE ROOM
Room of Jaroslav Jiřík is a quadruple room with shower, hairdryer, minibar, TV with remote control and colorful beanbags for comfortable seating. This room is decorated in pastel colors that correspond with the hotel logo. The room overlooks the outdoor swimming pool and adjacent forest.
Room of Jaroslav Jiřík
Jaroslav Jiřík
hockey forward, Kladno hockey seedbed former player, medallist from the Olympics and World Championships, the first ever player of the so called Eastern Bloc playing the NHL, Czech Hockey Hall of Famer, Member of the League Scorers Club.
A native of Vojnův Městec in the Vysočina Region; in the age of eight, he started to play in Kladno junior team under coach Jiří Tožička, he won the Czechoslovak Cup twice and the National Championship once with a youth team; he won the first title of the 1958/1959 season Champion with the legendary A-team SONP Kladno. This success was then repeated five times with the local team after doing his military service in Brno.
He started in 92 matches for Kladno in the highest national hockey league scoring 67 goals; he became a three-time winner of the European Cup with Brno. Overall, he played 450 games in the highest Czechoslovak hockey league scoring 300 goals; he became ‘the king of scorers’ in the 1968/1969 season with 35 goals; he played 134 matches and scored 83 goals as a member of the national team, represented at nine World Championships with a score of two silver and three bronze medals and at three Winter Olympics where he won silver and bronze.
As the first Czechoslovak player, he was allowed to leave for the NHL team St. Louis Blues by the communist regime; in the 1969/1970 season, he played three games there and the only goal he scored was eventually attributed to another player. He played in the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) for the Kansas City.
After the end of an active sport career, he switched to coaching, led the team ZKL Brno, the Swiss national team and other teams in the former Czechoslovakia and Germany; his stubborn fighting spirit in front of the rival goal area brought him the nickname ‘Potato’, unfortunately, it did not help him when an ultralight aircraft piloted by him crashed and he died in this accident.