As Team USA gets set to play Czech Republic on Wednesday, Chuck Gormley takes an intimate look at one USA's top players and his legendary father's amazing sacrifice.
From Chuck Gormley:
Forgive Paul Stastny if he takes Wednesday’s Olympic showdown between Team USA and the Czech Republic a little more personally than the rest of his American teammates.
Born in Quebec to Slovak parents who defected from what was then a Communist Czechoslovakia, Stastny considers himself as American, if not more so, than anyone born in these United States.
And for that he thanks his father, former NHL great Peter Stastny, and mother, Darina, for having the courage to defect from their native country for a better life.
“He was 24 when he did it and he had to grow up really fast,” said Paul Stastny, a 28-year-old center born five years after his parents defected in 1980.
“It obviously takes a lot of guts and a lot of sacrificing. Maybe you never see your family again. For the betterment of his children, for us, he made that decision. It showed a lot of guts and showed what kind of role model and leader my Dad was.”
Here's the full story.
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