player – Tennisarchives.com

General First nameJosef
LastnameMaleček
GenderMale
CountryCzechoslovakia
Date of birth1903-06-18
Place of birthPraha, Czechoslovakia
Date of death1982-09-26
Place of deathLong Island, New York, United States of America

About

From: Josef MALECEK

Josef Maleček was one of the most prominent and versatile Czechoslovak sportsmen of his time. He played ice hockey for a number of clubs – Sparta Prague (1914-27), LTC Prague (1927-43), where he had his most successful period, and later Vysokoskolsky SK and, as a player coach, Slovan Bratislava.

With LTC Prague, Maleček won five consecutive Czechoslovakian titles from 1931-35 and formed one of Europe’s best forward lines together with Karel Hromádka and Jirí Tožicka, leading the club to eight consecutive national titles from 1931-38.

After the German occupation Maleček added another four titles with LTC, winning the championship of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1940, 1942-44). With him, LTC also won the prestigious Spengler Cup four times. In 1941 he changed his preferred position from forward to defence.

Altogether, Maleček played 107 international games between 1920-39, scoring 114 goals. He won three European titles (1922, 1925, 1929) and was the leading scorer four times. At eight World Championships between 1930 and 1939, he led Czechoslovakia to two bronze medals in 1933 and 1938.

Maleček represented Czechoslovakia at 14 World and European Championships and three Olympic Winter Games, in 1924, 1928 and 1936. Maleček is universally considered the best pre-War European player. Statistics currently attribute 1,708 goals in 684 games to him. He was considered the first 1,000 goal scorer in ice hockey and was attributed over 250 hat tricks.

Maleček was an accomplished track athlete and played first league football for Sparta Prague. He also represented Czechoslovakia internationally in hockey (field) and tennis. He was a member of the Czechoslovak Davis Cup team in 1929, but did not play. He also took part in the French International Championships at Roland Garros in 1933.

Maleček was also a top-level cyclist and golfer. He was successful in running one of Czechoslovakia’s most popular stores for sporting goods in the centre of Prague, and later opened a second store in Bratislava.

In 1948, after the Communist takeover, Maleček used a Peruvian passport to leave Czechoslovakia. Because of his fame, the border guards recognized him but allowed him to leave. He later worked as a player-coach in Switzerland (HC Davos, Crans-Montana) and Germany (Krefeld), and also worked as a tennis coach.

Maleček ended his playing career in Zürich in 1954 at the age of 51, and his coaching career in Hannover, West Germany, in 1956. He then emigrated to the United States, settling in New York, where he worked as a sports broadcaster for Radio Free Europe. He lived on Long Island, where he died of heart failure in 1982. More than 20 years later, in 2003, Maleček was inducted into the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame in 2003. He is also a member of the Czech Ice Hockey Hall of Fame.

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