The Czech film Štěstí (Something Like Happiness) won seven 2005 Czech Lion awards this past Saturday. The awards were collected in the following categories:
Best Picture
Best Directing - Bohdan Sláma
Best Actor in a Leading Role - Pavel Liška
Best Actress in a Leading Role - Tatiana Vilhelmová
Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Anna Geislerová
Best Screenplay - Bohdan Sláma
Best Cinematography - Diviš Marek
The Czech hockey players have done it. They reached for an Olympic medal and got one. Not gold and not silver. They got a bronze and should be happy for it. To be honest, I didn’t think they’d make it to the quarterfinals after losing to Switzerland, Finland and Canada in the preliminaries. But their win over Slovakia on February 22 got them into the semifinals … where they were killed 3:7 by the Swedes who played a superb, incomparably better game.
Overall, the Czech team didn’t seem to be together somehow during the Olympics. It was made up of many excellent, experienced players but they weren’t very well coordinated during some of the games, and didn’t seem motivated enough. It felt as if the bond that makes a team was missing. Their inconsistent results (four wins and four losses) make the bronze medal feel less deserved.
Jaromír Jágr announced today that the bronze-medal game in Turin was probably his last game for the Czech national team. A number of his team mates, the golden guys from Nagano, are supposedly leaving as well. What does it mean for Czech Republic ice hockey? We’ll find out during the 2006 IIHF World Championship in Riga that runs from May 5 to May 21. Something to look forward to!
We are now on day13 of the Olympics and here is an update on Team Czech. So far, the Czech Republic has earned two silver medals - Kateřina Neumannová in the Women’s Cross-Country Skiing 15km Pursuit, who finished just 1.9 seconds behind Kristina Smigun of Estonia, and Lukáš Bauer in the Men’s Cross-Country Skiing 15km Classical.
The Czech hockey team, which had two wins and three losses in the preliminary round, beat Slovakia (undefeated in the preliminaries) 3-1 in the quarterfinals. The Czechs will face Sweden on Friday, while Finland meets Russia in the other semifinal.
The low-cost carrier SkyEurope announced yesterday that they are adding Prague as a base of operations to their existing bases of Budapest, Krakow, Warsaw and Vienna/Bratislava. Flights start on April 10 with routes to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Milan Bergamo, Naples (April 13), Nice (April 11), Paris Orly, and Rome Fiumicino. On many of its routes, SkyEurope will be competing with the Prague based low-cost carrier Smart Wings.
The opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy takes place today and the games run through February 26. There are high expectations for the Czech hockey team, which won the gold medal in the 1998 Olympics, the ski jumper Jakub Janda who won a silver and a bronze at the 2005 World Championships, and cross-country skier Kateřina Neumannová who won a gold medal at the 2005 World Championships.
The Prague Post has a good article on Team Czech and who to keep an eye on at the games. They also have an article on Jandamania.
