The players even stayed in the same hotel as they did the last time they won at home in 1972. The coaches were Karel Gut and Jan Starsi. Remaining from the Golden Team of ’72 were only Vladimir Martinec, Ivan Hlinka, Jiri Holecek, Oldrich Machac, and Jiri Bubla.

Among the newcomers were names such as Augusta, Cernik, Crha, Zajicek, and Richter.
In total there were eight teams longing for the Cup: next to Czechoslovakia came Canada, the USA, Finland, Sweden, both West Germany and East Germany and, of course, the Soviet Union. The system in place for the tournament made teams play with all rivals once, and then broke into two groups. In the first group the teams would fight for from first to fourth place, in the second group for fifth to eighth place.

The tournament’s beginning was very auspicious for the home team: they defeated first the East German team 10-0, Finland 6-4, and Canada, whose team included Dionne, Maruk, Picard, and Bouchard from the NHL, 5-0. They also beat the USA 8-3. And then came – The Game. The game against the Soviet Union. The Soviets were trained by Victor Tichonov and had the legendary Trejtak in goal. In the very first minutes Frantisek Cernik scored a hat-trick but by the middle of the game it was 3-3. In the final period, the Soviets made a few costly errors allowing the home team to capitalize and take the victory by a score of 6-4. The last rival for the Czechoslovaks in the basic group, Sweden, were defeated by a whisker: 2-3.

The first game in the final group for the home team was against Canada. In the 3rd minute it was 2-0 for the Canadians. But the Czechoslovaks showed their mettle and ended up winning 3-2. They then once again beat Sweden 6-1.