NHL Global Series Czechia puts hockey art exhibit in spotlight

Prague display shows how game is ‘integral part’ of national identity

PRAGUE — Sit on a bench in Old Town Square in the heart of Prague. Gaze up at the Church of Our Lady before Týn, the Gothic landmark that features the most famous two spires in “the city of 100 spires.”

Now look down to your left. Two colorful posters hang on the side of Kinský Palace, one in Czech and another in English. “GET ON THE ICE!” they say, advertising an exhibit of “ice hockey and skating in art” at the National Gallery Prague.

Buy a ticket for 270 Czech crowns (about 12 U.S. dollars), walk inside the palace and tour the exhibit. You’ll gain an appreciation for not only the art but the importance of hockey in the Czech Republic. You’ll see players like goalie Dominik Hašek and forward Jaromír Jágr in a way you never have before.

“Hockey has enjoyed great popularity in our country, and it gradually became an integral part of the national identity,” a brochure says. “It also found its way into art.”

The exhibit opened April 26 for the 2024 IIHF World Championship, which the Czech Republic won by defeating Switzerland 2-0 at O2 Arena in Prague on May 26. It doesn’t end until Oct. 27, so fans can see it while the Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils open the season at the same rink Friday and Saturday in the 2024 NHL Global Series Czechia presented by Fastenal.

There are about 100 works of art on display — from paintings to posters, photographs to sculptures. “Hockey,” a painting by Vojtěch Tittlebach in 1958, depicts the game as a colorful blur of jerseys and numbers in action. “For Tittlebach, hockey aesthetics was a manifestation of modern times and society, a symbol of the dynamism of life in motion,” a description says.

Hockey would become a symbol of other things. A poster advertises the 1969 world championship in Prague. After the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, the tournament was moved to Stockholm. “However, it did not prevent the manifestation of political ideals that one could fight for at least on the ice,” according to an article on the wall.

Czechoslovakia played with black tape over the five-pointed red star in the national emblem as a protest. It became the first country to defeat the Soviet Union twice in the same tournament and finished third.

“Hockey was more than a sport for the Czechoslovaks at that time,” an article says. “The general popularity of hockey, which began in the 1960s, reflected in Czech art as well. … However, the true importance of hockey for the Czechoslovaks at that time manifested itself only occasionally in the artworks, and it was ‘hidden between the lines.’”

Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on Jan. 1, 1993. “The fall of the Communist regime in November 1989 opened the possibility for Czech players to go abroad, especially to the NHL, without the need to emigrate,” an article says. “The memorable 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, got us back in the game.”

The Czech Republic won the gold medal in the first Olympics involving NHL players. “It was as if the Nagano victory became a realization of the optimistic 1990s related to the first period of restoring democracy and the identity of the modern Czech Republic,” a description says next to a collection of photographs.

Hašek and Jágr, two of the team’s stars, are depicted not as hockey icons but as religious icons — Hašek in his Buffalo Sabres uniform, Jágr in his Pittsburgh Penguins uniform, with gold halos. “Art could express anything now, without censorship, without borders, and this liberation applies to the theme of hockey as well,” an article says.

There is a painting of legendary coach Ivan Hlinka, who led the country in Nagano, and it’s not just of him. It’s by him. “Not many people know that one of his hobbies was painting,” a description says. “He signed his paintings with the pseudonym HLIVAN.”

“Sad Clown,” an existential self-portrait from the early 1980s, shows Hlinka as a sad clown looking down at his hockey bag. Four of his old jerseys hang over it, including the one he wore as a center for the Vancouver Canucks from 1981-83. “This oil painting can be perceived as an artistic recapitulation of his closing his career as a professional ice hockey player,” a description says.

There is the famous picture of Terry Sawchuk from Life Magazine in 1968 highlighting the scars he accumulated before he wore a goalie mask in the NHL. But artist Pavel Jestřáb used artificial intelligence to make it more realistic and got Hašek to pose for a similar portrait wearing a replica of Sawchuk’s first mask. A description says the work “sensitively balances the problematic depiction of great hockey players as fighters and a silent nostalgia for heroic imagery.”

There is so much more. But eventually, reach the end of the exhibit. Study photos of Prague after the victory in Nagano, fans waving the flag of the Czech Republic, Jágr holding up his hand standing behind defenseman Jiří Šlégr. Look out a window and see the bench where you were sitting. Think about the celebration that took place right there in Old Town Square.