Why We Defected

Anton Stastny tells the story of why him and his brothers decided to defect from Czechoslovakia to play for the NHL's Quebec Nordiques.

Anton Stastny and Peter Stastny decided to defect from Czechoslovakia to Quebec City, Canada in 1980. Older brother Marian defected a year later to join them on the Nordiques.

By defying the Iron Curtain and defecting to North America, the Stastny brothers changed the face of professional hockey forever. As someone who grew up as a big fan of Slovak hockey and even idolized the Stastny’s a bit, I was quite fortunate enough to have Anton Stastny write the foreword for my 2016 book ‘Hockey Hotbeds: Volume Two’ as he was very generous with his time for me.

Here is Anton telling him and his brothers fascinating story on growing up in Czechoslovakia and why they decided to eventually escape and defect in 1980.

I was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), on August 5th, 1959. I was the youngest of five boys in our family. When I was growing up, everybody played hockey because it was the number two sport in Czechoslovakia at the time. Soccer was number one. Most kids played soccer in the summer and hockey in the winter. And I was no different.