Czech Ice Hockey Association

	Czech Republic
Organization	Czech Ice Hockey Association
Joined IIHF	November 15, 1908
President	Tomáš Král
History	Bohemia; 1908-1920; Czechoslovakia; 1920-1992; Czech Republic; 1992-present
IIHF Men's Ranking	3
IIHF Women's Ranking	12
Website	http://www.czehockey.cz/

The Czech Ice Hockey Association (Czech: Český svaz ledního hokeje, ČSLH) is the governing body of ice hockey in the Czech Republic.

History

It was originally founded as the governing body of ice hockey in Bohemia and later served as Czechoslovakia's national federation.

The creation of the Bohemian federation was an extremely complicated and convoluted process as the representatives from the various clubs had to meet four times (December 11, 18, and 30, 1908 and January 13, 1909) before they were able to select a president. This was due to pre-existing rivalries between some of the clubs and nobody wanted to select a president from a rival club. The rivalry was particularly heated been Sparta and Slavia Praha.

Before the four main meetings there was a preliminary meeting held at the U Karla IV restaurant. It was attended by the following delegates:

Novomestsky SK - Herites and Benes
SK Vlasim - Chalupa and Hufnag
AC Sparta Praha - Kracik and Falten
AFK Vrsovice - Hatina and Rombald
Slavij Zizkov - Vlk
BK Mlada Boleslav - Meisner
SK Slavia Praha - Prochazka and Bohutinsky
Union Zizkov - Benatsky
Viktoria Zizkov - Moscinsky and Stokl
BZK Praha - Potucek
SK Smichov - Richter and Poniatovsky

A committee was selected after the initial meeting featuring Herites, Prochazka, Benatski, Kracik and Potucek. The second meeting was held on December 11 at a restaurant named U Platize. Emil Prochazka told the 30 delegates from 12 clubs present that Bohemia had become members of the LIHG (November 15, 1908). Their LIHG membership predated the official creation of the federation. Dr.Petrik from Sparta was selected as a temporary president at the second meeting, only to resign along with the entire committee at the third meeting on December 30.

The Czech newspaper Narodni Politika from early 1909 (January 2-3) wrote the following after the fourth meeting: "There is a saying that you get it done in three times, but this wasn't enough for the people who want to found the Czech Ice Hockey Federation. After three meetings they decided that they needed a fourth, where they will replace the resigned president and committee. The idea is that all hockey clubs who want to be in the federation will be in the committee, something that was decided during the third meeting on December 30. By this everybody hopes that the tensions between some clubs will ease up a little. It is already decided that Dr. Petrik and Mr. Prochazka will not run for presidency."

At the fourth meeting the committee chosen was Jaroslav Potucek (BZK), Emil Prochazka (Slavia), Meisner (Mlada Boleslav) and Herites (Novomestsky SK). They accepted an invitation to play in the 1909 Coupe de Chamonix international tournament. It was also decided that a Czech delegate would go to Chamonix for the LIHG congress. A young medical student named Josef Gruss was chosen as the delegate. He was the goaltender for the Czechs in their first real international ice hockey game. Gruss had also tried to form a Czech Ice Hockey Federation years earlier but had failed.