Daily Times

PRAGUE: Czech ice hockey great Augustin Bubnik, who was imprisoned and tortured by the communist regime after he was accused of being a spy, died on Tuesday, his family said. He was 88. A world champion with Czechoslovakia in 1949 and Olympic finalist the year before, Bubnik had suffered a long illness. His burgeoning career was brutally stopped short in 1950 when he and several world champion team-mates were arrested by the Czech communist regime, which had seized power in a coup d’etat two years earlier. Almost the entire national ice hockey team was thrown in prison, accused of espionage and treason, where they were tortured and sent to a forced labour camp to work in a notorious uranium mine. Sentenced to 14 years, Bubnik and his team-mates were eventually released in 1955 following an amnesty granted to political prisoners after the deaths in 1953 of the Czech and Soviet dictators Klement Gottwald and Joseph Stalin. Bubnik resumed his playing career but was barred from the national team. Following his retirement he went on to coach Finland and then after the fall of communism in his country in 1989, he served as a member of parliament.