Jan Novák: Guns, Pucks, Beer, and Dogs

synopsis

Jan and Adam Novák’s documentary comedy offers a look at army hockey under socialism. Through intimate interviews and selected gems from the Army Film Archives, they introduce us to the mentality of Czechoslovakia’s hockey soldiers and officers. Czechoslovakia’s most famous hockey players and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff explain what it was like to train and play for the army’s hockey clubs, what units they served with and what their role in the event of war would have been, how they were promoted, and how they smuggled glassware, vodka, money, and hockey pucks through the Iron Curtain in order to bring laundry detergent back home. About mass “socialist” weddings of players, about breathalyzer tests before Sunday practice, about fulfilling their commitments and going to interrogations.  

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