Josef Mikoláš (, 23 January 1938 – 20 March 2015) was a Czechoslovak

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

goaltender In ice hockey, the goaltender (commonly referred to as goalie or netminder) is the player responsible for preventing the hockey puck from entering their own team's net, thus preventing the opposing team from scoring. The goaltender mostly plays ...

of the 1950s and 1960s. His biggest success came in 1961 when he helped the

Czechoslovak national ice hockey team The Czechoslovakia men's national ice hockey team was the national ice hockey team of Czechoslovakia, and competed from 1920 until 1992. The successor to the Bohemia national ice hockey team, which ...

win silver medals at the World Ice Hockey Championships in Geneva,

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and in 1963 when they took bronze in Stockholm,

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. Altogether he played in 29 matches for the national team.

Early life

Josef Mikoláš was born to a

single mother A single parent is a person who has a child or children but does not have a spouse or live-in partner to assist in the upbringing or support of the child. Reasons for becoming a single parent include death, divorce, break-up, abandonment, bec ...

and had three younger siblings. When he was a small boy, he suffered from several serious illnesses, including

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

and

rickets Rickets, scientific nomenclature: rachitis (from Greek , meaning 'in or of the spine'), is a condition that results in weak or soft bones in children and may have either dietary deficiency or genetic causes. Symptoms include bowed legs, stun ...

. When he was five years old, he still could not walk. Despite this he later attended a coal mining apprentice school in

Ostrava Ostrava (; ; ) is a city in the north-east of the Czech Republic and the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region. It has about 283,000 inhabitants. It lies from the border with Poland, at the confluences of four rivers: Oder, Opava (river), Opa ...

and worked as a

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after he finished it. He lived in Ostrava and started his ice hockey career here.

Ice hockey career

Josef Mikoláš started playing for ice-hockey team Pracovní zálohy Ostrava in 1956, but soon he came to another Ostrava team, VŽKG Vítkovice, who were playing in the

Czechoslovak First Ice Hockey League The Czechoslovak First Ice Hockey League was the elite ice hockey league in Czechoslovakia from 1936 until 1993, when the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Slovak Extraliga and Czech Extraliga formed from the split. Histor ...

, the highest league in former

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

. He quickly got recognition for both his goaltender's skills and courage with which he faced the shots, although he was not wearing any head protection in that time. In 1959 he was elected the best Czechoslovak goaltender of the season. His career culminated in 1961, when he was nominated into the

for the World Ice Hockey Championships in Geneva, Switzerland. The team won most of the matches and surprisingly beat even the

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6–4. They drew with

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1–1 and finally took silver due to Canada's better overall

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. For his performance Josef Mikoláš won the trophy of the Czechoslovak Sportsperson of the Year. In 1962 the World Championships took place in Colorado Springs, USA, but the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia boycotted the tournament. In 1963 they took bronze at the World Championships in Stockholm, Sweden.

Injuries

Josef Mikoláš was acknowledged for his courage, with which he faced the puck although he did not wear face protection. In his time only some goaltenders experimented with home-made masks, but he refused to use any. Throughout his career he lost eight teeth and suffered a broken

cheekbone In the human skull, the zygomatic bone (from ), also called cheekbone or malar bone, is a paired irregular bone, situated at the upper and lateral part of the face and forming part of the lateral wall and floor of the orbit (anatomy), orbit, of t ...

, double

fracture Fracture is the appearance of a crack or complete separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress (mechanics), stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacemen ...

of his

lower jaw In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla). The jawbone i ...

and 35 sutured injuries. As the most painful he described a shot of

Karel Gut Karel Gut (16 September 1927 – 6 January 2014) was a Czech ice hockey player and coach, who later worked in sports management. He was born in Prague and later played in the Czechoslovak Extraliga. While Gut played soccer in his youth, he was be ...

, which cost him four teeth at one moment. Altogether he had about eighty stitches all over his head. He tried wearing a

goaltender mask A goaltender mask, commonly referred to as a goalie mask, is a mask worn by goaltenders in a variety of sports to protect the Human head, head and face from injury from the ball or puck, as they constantly face incoming shots on goal. Some sports ...

only a short time before the end of his career.

End of the career and off-ice life

Soon after the World Championships in Sweden Mikoláš's career started declining. In 1965 he got divorced and moved to

Chomutov Chomutov (; ) is a city in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 47,000 inhabitants. There are almost 80,000 inhabitants in the city's wider metropolitan area. The historic city centre is well preserved and is protected as ...

, where he got married again and played for VTŽ Chomutov until 1968. Then he returned to Ostrava but in 1970 he finally finished his ice hockey career and worked as a

sports journalist Sport is a physical activity or game, often competitive and organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The number of participants in a par ...

. He had three daughters. On 20 March 2015, he died after an illness.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mikolas, Josef 1938 births 2015 deaths Czech ice hockey goaltenders Czechoslovak ice hockey goaltenders Sportspeople from Frýdek-Místek Czech sports journalists Ice hockey people from Ostrava Piráti Chomutov players HC Vítkovice players