Prague Journal

Sunday, May 15, 2005.

The Czechs are the IIHF 2005 World Champions! The Czech Republic won the world ice hockey championship in Vienna, with Martin Rucinsky and Jaromir Jagr leading them to a 3-0 shutout of Canada, breaking the Canadians stranglehold on the gold medal. The win handed the Czechs their fifth title in 10 years and broke Canada’s bid to win a third consecutive championship and 24th overall, which would have tied them with the former Soviet Union/Russia for the most golds. The Czechs, who were cheered on by a strong contingent of fans, including the Czech president and prime minister, now have 11 titles, counting those from the former Czechoslovakia. Czech President Vaclav Klaus, Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek and Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, visited the players after their victory to personally congratulate them. The Czech team presented Klaus with a red national team uniform with his name and the number 2005, with a glass of champagne. In his short speech he thanked the players for their exceptional performance and representation of the Czech Republic. Nine years ago the Czech team also defeated Canada in the final world ice hockey championships (4-2) and rejoiced over the first Czech champions’ title after the division of Czechoslovakia in 1993. At that time, Klaus was in the audience as the Czech prime minister. Back in Prague, there was cheering in the streets and in Old Town Square, where a big TV screen had been set up. There will be more celebrations tomorrow when the team returns home.
Lesser headlines on the national news scene concerns the coalition government of Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek, which won a confidence vote in the lower house of parliament on Friday. Hopefully this will end the months of political crisis in the Czech Republic. Mr Paroubek replaced Stanislav Gross, who had been forced to step down amid months of controversy over his personal finances. All 101 MPs in the ruling coalition voted for Mr Paroubek’s government, while the remaining 99 opposition deputies all voted against.
On the economic front, the Czech Republic climbed from 43rd to 36th place out of 60 countries measured in terms of economic performance, economic policy, the corporate sector, and infrastructure, according to the local news media. The Czech economy’s strongest point is investment in telecoms, where the country ranked third. Foreign investment and exports were also above average. Growing stock prices, literacy, good railways and electricity systems, low interest rates, the number of mobile phones, and relatively low managers’ salaries were other aspects where the country ranked high.
But the Czech Republic fell from 28th to 36th place in economic performance. The country ranked only 56th in labor market, one of its biggest weaknesses, 44th in government policies. Among post-communist countries, only Estonia ranked higher than the Czech Republic. Slovakia, thanks to its many reforms, was 17th, ahead of such countries as Austria and Germany.

posted by JWinn @ 10:01 PM