In 1985, I was visiting New Jersey from Puerto Rico and my uncle took me to see a New Jersey Devils hockey game. I had never seen anything like it. Up to that point my sport exposure to sports had been limited to playing second base in Little League for a month and I was so bored I would stare at butterflies and get hit by line drives. I was fascinated by the speed, the passing, the hitting, the fighting, the goaltenders and their pads, all of it! Although the Devils lost that night 4–2, I became enamored with the sport of hockey and the NHL.

When I moved to New Jersey permanently in 1990, although Captain Kirk, John McLean and Brendan Shanahan were the scoring stars, I was fascinated by #26, Peter Stastny. Stastny was now an older vet by then but he was once a scoring superstar for the Quebec Nordiques. He bursted on to the scene with a 109 point rookie campaign, first ever rookie to 100 points, still the second most rookie points behind Teemu Selanne’s 132.

But that wasn’t the fascinating part. In 1980, Peter and his brother Anton defected to Canada from at the time Czechoslovakia to play for in the NHL with the Nordiques. A year later, their brother Marian joined them and the trio formed a high scoring line for a few seasons.

The concept of defecting was completely foreign to me. I didn’t quite understand and was too young to grasp the political part of the meaning. The only other time I heard the word was when Robin Williams’ Vladimir Ivanoff said it in Moscow on the Hudson, but I was promptly kicked out of the room by my parents because the movie gets a bit not PG.

Years later, I finally got to read and learn more about the Stastny Brothers in Tal Pinchevsky’s Breakaway: From Behind the Iron Curtain to the NHL — The Untold Story of Hockey’s Great Escapes. If you’re a hockey history buff, do yourself a favor and read it. Learn about the Stastny Brothers, Alexander Mogilny, Petr Klima and the pioneer of them all, Vaclav Nedomansky.

Nedomansky or Big Ned, was a star on the Czechoslovakia National Team, which won the silver at the Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France in February of 1968. But by then, the onset of the Prague Spring was underway and Czechoslovakia was about to be invaded by the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact Nations August of that year. Ever wonder why Jaromir Jagr and Zigmund Palffy wore #68?

In 1974 Nedomansky turned 30 and he started to plan his escape to North America. Although he procured travel visas to Canada for his wife, son and himself, he knew he wasn’t going back to his homeland anytime soon, if ever.

Nedomansky went on to play in the WHA and eventually in the NHL with the Detroit Red Wings, leading the team in scoring in his second NHL season at age 34. He retired in 1983 at age 38, but his legacy in international hockey and the National Hockey League was already secured.

Vaclav Nedomansky opened the door for some of the greatest international hockey talents to bring their skillsets to North America and play on hockey’s greatest stage. Read Pinchevsky’s book to truly understand and appreciate his story and all the others who risked their lives to play the sport that they loved.

Nedomansky’s son, Vashi has made a documentary about his father called Big Ned, checkout the trailer at VashiVisuals.

Congratulations to Big Ned and his family in being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Thanks to Vashi Visuals for the pic in this post.