"I never considered emigrating. Anyone, who did this, caused it relate to the whole family, to kinship and to other distant relatives. I hear it from someone saying that someone did something and ran away and the boy didn't get to school. The offers were in 1975, 1976 and 1977. They always came and told me, 'I have something ready when you stay here. A wife and family will come too.´ But that meant getting rid of all of them and knowing I wouldn't get home. Which was unthinkable to me just because I said a while ago. Something may happen, something would go wrong and I won't get home - I'll be sorry then. If I look at it through my eyes today, if I did, I would be a hero first and speak English in the second. If your English is not good enough, then in my opinion you are ut omainly in hockey, in sports..."
"When I did evening industrial school, there was no problem. But the problem was four years when I worked as a peddler in Hradec Králové. I got money there too, but it was kind of broken down into those who were employed. They didn't get that much, but they signed it and I got it. There was a fraud, well probably not fraud, but circumvention of the law. It couldn't be otherwise. The money was brought to us by an accountant, but we couldn't even sign it while we were studying. So it was broken down into an entire team or more people. I'm not saying they were any dead souls. The teammates knew that some money was going to us. We were about two students. Otherwise we couldn't get any money. We were not employed, we were students and therefore what we would pay rent and other necessities. I have been married since 1969. I went to college in 1973. They always did it in Tesla somehow, that I received the same money as the players who matched my level. It was no more, they knew it was so. It was open and I agreed."
"When I was alone in Germany and I called my wife, I could always hear a kind of clicking there – they were monitoring what was happening. Or before that, a daughter called a friend to school about what was happening. So it was eavesdropped on, too. They were confused when they called the twelve-year-old girls regarding school. They didn't know what it was about, those who were at the wiretap."
Vladimír Martinec was born on December 22, 1949 in Lomnice nad Popelkou. The parents farmed, the father later worked as the chairman of the collective farm. Vladimír Martinec had three siblings. He went to primary school in Lomnice nad Popelkou, where he played competitive hockey and football. At the age of fifteen he moved to Tesla Pardubice. He trained as a toolmaker in the company, then started studying an evening industrial school. He started playing the highest hockey competition representing Tesla in 1967, and played the first national team match in 1969. He got married in the same year, and has two children with his wife. In 1972, he became world champion with the Czechoslovak hockey team. He won two more world titles in 1976 and 1977. He won a bronze and a silver medal at the 1972 and 1976 Olympic Games. He won the Czechoslovak title with Tesla Pardubice in the 1972/73 season. He became the Czechoslovak hockey player of the year four times. Between 1981 to 1985 he worked in the ESV Kaufbeuren in the Federal Republic of Germany. After finishing his active playing career, he worked as a coach. With Tesla Pardubice he won the Czechoslovak league in the 1988/89 season and the Czech extra league in the 2004/05 season. During the victory of the hockey national team at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, he worked as an assistant to coach Ivan Hlinka. He held the same position from 1999 to 2001, when the national team won three world titles times in a row. In 2018, he became a city representative and city councillor in Pardubice. In 2020, he lived in Pardubice and played the role of advisor in the local extra-league club.
Bohuslav Šťastný, Jiří Novák and Vladimír Martinec (from left) created an offensive trio that became one of the legends of Czechoslovak and world hockey
Bohuslav Šťastný, Jiří Novák and Vladimír Martinec (from left) created an offensive trio that became one of the legends of Czechoslovak and world hockey
Bohuslav Šťastný, Jiří Novák and Vladimír Martinec (from left) they met already at the Tesla Pardubice junior team. They could play together almost from start.
Bohuslav Šťastný, Jiří Novák and Vladimír Martinec (from left) they met already at the Tesla Pardubice junior team. They could play together almost from start.
