This Day in Hockey History – August 24, 1980 – Slovakian Stastny Siblings

The plan played out like a spy movie – secret phone call, police escort racing through the streets, asylum at an embassy, and arrival on a new continent the next day. That was how the Stastny brothers defected from Czechoslovakia to Canada in 1980. The middle and younger brothers, Peter and Anton, initiated the defection from Innsbruck, Austria, which they left on August 24, and on August 25, they landed as new members of the Quebec Nordiques. After a miserable year facing repercussions back in Europe, the team finally managed to bring over the third member of the Stastny line, older brother Marian. The success of the Stastny brothers opened the door for further defections and for more European players to sign with the NHL.

Perfectly summarizing the mindset going into this, then president of the Nordiques Marcel Aubut said, “Believe it or not, there’s a mother in Czechoslovakia who’s got a son [Anton] who is the star on the left side , another son [Peter] who’s a star in the center , and another one [Marian] who is the star on the right wing. I said, ‘That’s it, we have to go and pick them up. How do we do this?’” After Gilles Lèger scouted them in 1976, he began a three-year effort to obtain the Stastny brothers for the WHA. When Lèger was hired as the Nordiques director of player development in 1979, Aubut entrusted him with “The European Project,” signing the Stastny line. They drafted the youngest, Anton, in the fourth round that year.

Until that point, the Stastny brothers had it too good to leave Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia). They did not appreciate the 1968 invasion by the Soviet Union, which prompted Peter to say, “They were so big and we were just a tiny speck. But in the hockey rink, it was different. We were on even terms.” After all, he noted, they were playing in “the golden age of hockey in Czechoslovakia,” winning the World Championship in 1972, 1976, and 1977 and silver at the 1976 Olympics. For their role in the mid-1970s national accomplishments, the Stastny brothers received honors and bonuses. However, under a coach Peter felt “wasn’t fulfilling his responsibilities towards the players,” the national team slid, missing the medal podium in 1980 at Lake Placid (where the Nordiques intended to meet with the Stastnys but failed to get around security). At the same time, HC Slovan Bratislava, the brothers’ team in the Czechoslovakian league, went through some trades that brought them low. Peter said, “I wanted to play good hockey . . . and there were some problems with the hockey club there.”

When HC Slovan Bratislava traveled to Innsbruck for a tournament, Peter and Anton made their move. On August 21, Peter used a pay phone at the post office to call the Nordiques’ switchboard. He told Lèger and Aubut that he and Anton wanted to sign with them if they were still interested. They were so interested, they flew over immediately. Aubut said, “For me, it was one more try.”

On Friday, August 22, the Nordiques management landed in Austria and checked in to the Europa Tyrol Hotel, a couple blocks from the Holiday Inn hosting the team. After their game against Finland, Peter and Anton met with them at the Europa for two and a half hours. The Stastny brothers knew their worth and negotiated six-year contracts at about $250,000 per year. Aubut wanted them to leave from there, but the brothers decided to stay for the final game.

Sunday’s game would be one last hurrah for the Stastny line because Marian would be left behind to return to his family back in Slovakia. As the Soviets crushed the Stastnys’ team 11-1, Peter’s heavily pregnant wife, Darina, moved all their bags into a red Mercedes driven by an anonymous man (often called 007 because his name has not been made public). When the game ended at 11 pm, the brothers had some drinks and dinner with teammates. At 12:15 am, the brothers bid each other farewell as Peter and Anton left Marian at the bus (scheduled to leave at 1), got into the Mercedes, and drove six hours to Vienna. Peter later admitted, “[Those were] the scariest moments of my life. It was like being part of a John le Carré novel.”

Meanwhile, Lèger and Aubut had arrived at Vienna and informed the Canadian Embassy of the impending arrival and need for asylum and documentation. The Stastny family arrived at 6 am and tried to rest in Aubut’s suite at the Intercontinental Hotel. Unfortunately, the Nordiques representatives were recognized by Czechoslovakian security personnel and had to hightail it to the embassy at 10 Dr. Karl Leuvering Strasse. There, a woman named Schallgruber took charge. When she noticed a car from the Czechoslovak Embassy outside, she asked whether Lèger had protection. She then arranged for the Austrian police to escort them back to the hotel. The Stastny defectors were alarmed to see Schallgruber and the police when they opened the door to the suite. The Czechoslovakians tried calling the brothers to threaten them into staying, but Schallgruber answered and hung up. Under police escort, the group raced back to the Canadian Embassy and then to the airport. The whole time Aubut worried, “We are going to lose everything without a perfect operation.”

After their harrowing escape, the Nordiques group landed in Montreal on Monday, August 25. As Aubut told the press, “We took certain risks, enormous risks . . . there are moments I won’t ever forget . . . I don’t think I’m ready to do it again.” To tie up loose ends, the Nordiques sent a proposal to the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) to compensate the Czechoslovakian national team for the Stastny brothers. They then announced the Stastny contracts on August 26.

Meanwhile, Marian, had remained in Europe. His younger brothers made their escape thanks to loose security resulting from their team’s assumption that with Marian’s family back in Czechoslovakia, he would not leave and they would not abandon him. When his brothers told him their plan, Marian said, ” It was the worst moment I had to go through in my life so far, because I realized that it will be over for me and I cannot go with them, because I did not have my family with me.”

That left Marian to face the backlash caused by his brothers’ defection. Although he had been a team leader, HC Slovan Bratislava immediately suspended him, and he was basically blackballed from hockey in his homeland. Marian described the scene, “The chief of the team announced to me that I’m not anymore welcome in the dressing room. And he simply told me that, ‘Take your equipment and put into the dressing room and leave as soon as possible.’” Anton admitted, “We knew that life for Marian would change completely.” According to Peter, “I really felt responsible for all of the misery he had to go through because they punished him miserably. . . . They made him nobody, nothing. They isolated him.”

Aubut hoped they would find a way to bring over Marian too. After a year, they used falsified documents to get Marian, his wife, and their three kids out. Upon being reunited with his brothers, Marian said, “Well to be honest with you, I was very glad to see them, and to give them a hug, because they are and they were be forever my brothers.”

The brothers skated on a line together as they had in Czechoslovakia, and became one of the decade’s strongest lines. After struggling to transition to their new league, team, and country, the Stastny brothers found great success playing for the Quebec Nordiques. Peter even won the Calder Trophy as the top rookie.

As a result of their defection and NHL stardom, the Stastny brothers are credited with the near flood of European players that followed them into the NHL. Peter would even help some of them adjust as he spoke no less than six languages! He said, “I remembered what it was like. I was in their shoes.” In doing so, he learned that his former enemies, the Russians, “all have huge hearts, they are very good human beings. I don’t think it’s the people who are bad. Sometimes, the leaders, the system, they are what is bad.” With the system overhauled by the Velvet Divorce that separated Slovakia from the Czech Republic, Peter was able to represent his homeland once more and carried the Slovakian flag to open the 1994 Olympics.

By playing first for Czechoslovakia, then Canada, then the U.S., then Slovakia, the Stastny family became the first to represent so many countries in international hockey.

Additional Sources:

• Wayne Parrish, “It’s Nordiques 2, Communists 0 as Czech brothers defect to NHL,” Montreal Gazette, 27 Aug. 1980, p. 1.
• Wayne Parrish, “Nordiques to pay compensation,” Montreal Gazette, 27 Aug. 1980, p. 80.
• https://www.si.com/vault/1980/11/17/825149/dont-call-us-well-call-you-two-czech-stars-got-on-the-phone-to-quebec-and-came-in-from-the-cold
• https://www.nhl.com/news/peter-stastny-100-greatest-nhl-hockey-players/c-285607424?tid=283865022
• “Stastny,” documentary, Candela Collective Inc., TSN Original.