Svoboda vyhrávat – Scheiner Ethan (2024)

Freedom to Win by Ethan Scheiner is truly one of the best, if not the best book on sports and history that I have ever read. It is highly informative, fascinating, and inspiring, as the author describes in great detail the struggles of Czechoslovakia during the Cold War period. Historically, the country was a scapegoat sacrificed to aggressive and tyrannical powers, such as Nazi Germany in 1938 and the Soviet Union in 1968, under the term Prague Spring. In both cases, strong free states did nothing to help it in its suffering. Ice hockey has been a way for Czechs and Slovaks to assert themselves on the world stage since the 1950s, achieving success against larger nations and showing that it is possible and meaningful. The thrilling and bitter rivalry in this sport between Czechoslovakia and the USSR truly prevailed after the Prague Spring in 1968, when approximately 500,000 Soviet-led soldiers occupied Czechoslovakia, a small country with only 15 million inhabitants, to end the more liberal policies of the then government. The country's leader, Alexander Dubček (First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia), was arrested by Soviet soldiers and taken to Moscow. The Soviet side installed...