PETER Šťastný, one of Slovakia's most famous ice hockey players and currently a member of the European Parliament representing the opposition Slovak Democratic and Christian Union party has officially left the Slovak Hockey Hall of Fame (SSSH). He had been inducted in 2002.
Šťastný withdrew from the Hall of Fame to keep a public promise made last year to do so unless the current president of the Slovak Ice-Hockey Association (SZĽH ), Juraj Široký, resigned. Šťastný's threat was in protest Široký's past history. Šťastný believes the association president had worked as a high officer in the communist secret police.
“Today is a sad day for me,” Šťastný said, as quoted by the SITA newswire.
“About a year ago when I called on the president of SZĽH to resign from all his functions within Slovak ice hockey within three-months, I conditioned it with my leaving the SSSH and taking down the flag with my portrait, name and number from the ceiling of the Ice-Hockey Stadium of Ondrej Nepela in Bratislava. Mr Široký did not resign and now my flag has been taken down from the ceiling.”
