Five, four, three, two, one, gooooal! roared the entire country.
It was the final seconds, and the Czechoslovak team had defended a narrow 3:2 victory over the Soviet Union at the Ice Hockey World Championship, which, by coincidence, was being held right in Prague. After years of humiliation, oppression, and vassalage, fortune smiled on us for at least a few hours, even if it was only in sport. At least here, we showed that we wouldn’t be broken so easily. People came out of their houses; celebrations erupted across the country as if the last Soviet tank had already left Czechoslovakia. In the morning, the men had a bit of a headache, but so what? It was worth it. It was April 1972, and people had just been through the grim years following the disillusionment of the 1968 Prague Spring. And so the communists turned up the heat a little to improve the public mood – wages were increased, young families received benefits, more children were born, and mothers could take longer maternity leave. An entrepreneur from České Budějovice invented the hot dog in a bun (well, he first saw it in the West), a Yugoslavian flight attendant named Vesna fell out of a plane from a height of ten kilometres over Czechoslovakia and survived, and another plane from our country was hijacked to the West. A sense of oppression prevailed among the people, and there was talk of emigration. But apart from the television of the time, nothing was so black and white. Karel Gott sang “Ó, mami, dík” (Oh, Mum, Thanks), while the band Olympic sang “Co tě napadá” (What’s On Your Mind). People, as always, found a good reason not to grieve too much – perhaps so they wouldn't miss the next episode of Jaroslav Dietl's TV series or Messrs. Hlaváček and Krajíček from the show 'The Funnier One Wins'. And they laughed at another joke from Mr. Egg in a TV commercial.
