Sawt Falasteen - Czech family produces perfect pucks for Olympic ice hockey

Fresh from the oven, the black rubber discs have to cool and be decorated with the Olympic logo before being shipped to Italy for the Milan-Cortina Winter Games.

They are made by Gufex, a family company with eight staff and run by three women, based in the eastern Czech village of Katerinice.

It has supplied pucks to the Olympics since Nagano 1998, co-owner and manager Katerina Zubickova told AFP.

Milan-Cortina is getting 10,000 pucks for the men's, women's and Paralympic tournaments and another 10,000 souvenir pucks.

Zubickova's stepfather Pavel Mracek founded Gufex in 1990, a year after the former Czechoslovakia had shed the Moscow-steered communist rule of four decades to switch to a market economy.

"He was the first private entrepreneur in the region, making rubber things like kitchen scrapers or pressure cooker gaskets," Zubickova said.

Mracek's life changed in 1994 when the nearby Vsetin city's ice hockey club advanced to the top league in the country where the sport is as popular as football.

"Dad was a big fan and one day they asked him to make a puck. I think it was a joke at first," said Zubickova.

In a year, Mracek found the ideal rubber compound whose recipe is as secret as Coca-Cola's, and which has remained almost unchanged for decades -- just like the local machinery.

"The compound is key," said Zubickova. "We have never seen our puck fall to pieces or malfunction during a game."

- 'On a mission' -

Zubickova said Gufex pucks leave fewer marks on the boards than rival products, and they never break the plexiglass.

"I think this is why they chose them for Nagano," said the energetic 46-year-old.

Nagano, the first-ever Olympic ice hockey tournament featuring top NHL stars, produced a stunning win for the Czechs -- and brought fame to Gufex.

"Everyone here was so proud. It was really special. They played with pucks from our tiny village," said Vojtech Zubicek, the owner's husband and Katerinice mayor.

But Nagano started with a shock for Gufex -- just before the Games, journalists noticed a spelling mistake on the Olympic logo on finished pucks which said "Oplympic", due to an error by the organisers.

"We had to produce five thousand new pucks in days," said Zubicek.

"Those 'Oplympic' pucks are now a precious collector's item," he chuckled.

Gufex pucks have featured at all Olympic tournaments bar Vancouver 2010, whose organisers preferred local pucks, and Sochi 2018, which Zubickova called "specific", without elaborating.

The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) asked Gufex to supply pucks for its world championships from 2000 onwards.

Mracek died four years later, leaving Gufex to his wife and daughters.

"It was terribly quick," said Zubickova, who was a fresh university graduate and had other plans.

"But he wanted the company to continue. So we are on a mission," she added.

- 'A huge prestige' -

To make a puck, rubber compound lumps are put in a mould and baked in a press for about 12 minutes.

They cool for a day before they get the final brush and logos.

Gufex exports 80 percent of its pucks, targeting ice hockey superpowers Finland and Sweden, but also countries like South Africa, Mexico, Japan or Kuwait.

Its eight employees produce a million pucks a year, of which the annual world championships only require about 30,000.

"This is not about business. For a tiny company like ours, it's a huge prestige," said Zubickova, who likes to attend major tournaments as a fan with her family.

The pucks often end up in the stands as a cherished fan souvenir, while players sometimes claim the puck they have scored with.

Like Boston Bruins star David Pastrnak, who scored the game-winning goal in the 2024 World Championships final in Prague to hand the Czechs gold after a 14-year drought.

"That was something," recalled an elated Vojtech Zubicek. "He scored and then I saw him flashing the puck he has kept. Our puck!"

Q.Bulbul--SF-PST