Swing music and ice-hockey catch on in Czechoslovakia during the prosperous 1930's. The country is being run as a successful western democracy. A large, modern ice-rink is built in the capitol city of Prague. The cold winters allow the youths in smaller towns to take up the sport with gusto. But the idyl ends with the German occupation. There are suddenly other things to worry about, like World War II.

When the International Ice-Hockey Federation decides to stage the first post-war championships in 1947, Prague is chosen as the host city. The newly-formed Czechoslovakian team is composed of players who never before competed in a world class event. Their energy and enthusiasm dominate the competition. They wrestle the world title away from the reigning champions, the Canadians, in one of the first major sporting events of the post-war era.

Numerous wins in international tournaments and a silver medal at the Olympic Games in St. Moritz in 1948 firmly establish the position of the Czechoslovakian team on the world sporting scene. In their own country, the twelve dashing young men have become heroes and the 'darlings' of the crowds.

However, the euphoria of their Olympic achievement is clouded over by the Communist Putsch that comes only a few days later. The atmosphere in the country dramatically changes. The wave of nationalisation is followed by an exodus of 300,000 Czechs and Slovaks. A new law called: 'On the Defence of the Socialist Republic' allows for conviction for treason for even an idea. Within three years, 29,000 people appeared in front of the state courts. 70,000 more were summoned by regional courts and 27,000 political prisoners were forced to work in labor camps.

Although the nation tried to look on the bright side, it soon became apparent that for the authorities even sports was becoming a political issue. The new regime considers ice-hockey, tennis and soccer, a western-bourgeois pursuit. In 1949, during a secret session, the government discusses the national hockey team's participation in the up-coming World Championship Games in Sweden. Fearing international embarrassment if the players defect, they send several secret police agents to follow the team throughout the tournament.

Nevertheless, the spirit of the team does not falter. For the second time in history, they become the world champions. When the train brings the team back across the Czechoslovakian border, they are confronted with the grim view of electric barbwire fences and border guards armed with machine guns and dogs. Still, in Prague, thousands of adoring fans assemble to welcome the Champions outside the Wilson railway station. In the reception hall, stern-faced government officials make speeches, praising not the players themselves, but 'the new - socialist, collective game concept achieving victory over the capitalist, money motivated, star system.'

Political life in the country follows more and more the Soviet model. Stalin, in one of his famous Cold War speeches, demands immediate and harsh punishment for the 'class enemy'. A series of political trials are simultenously staged in all of the Eastern Block countries. Verdicts of capital punishment and life-sentences are routinely handed down by the judges in Warszaw, Budapest, Sofia and Prague. Thousands of opposition politicians, business leaders, scientists, clergymen and army generals become the first victims of Communist justice.

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