Ice hockey as a symbol of national identity: the Czech society 20 years after the Nagano triumph

This bachelor's thesis deals with the process of building national identity through sport, specifically ice hockey. The thesis focuses primarily on the aspects contributing to the reproduction of the Czech national identity. Important aspects are mainly symbols, which remind us of the individual's belonging to the nation, as well as the media, which significantly help to the mythization of sports events. One of the events that played an important role in the formation of the Czech national identity is the 1998 Nagano Olympics. The success of the Czech hockey team in this tournament made part of the history twenty years ago; there are still many legacies of this triumph nowadays. The thesis is based on a research that combined several methods. I obtained the data through participant observation of the national team matches broadcasts, I also analysed documents that referred to the legacies of Czech victory, and I carried out semi-structured interviews with ice hockey fans. The interviews suggest that the victory of the Nagano hockey players, with the contribution of the media and banal nationalism, underwent the process of mythization, and thus played a significant role in the Czech national identity building