print
The gold medal is adorned with one thousandth of millimeter of the yellow metal

Rounded gong weights 200 grams, it is 0,5 cm extensive and coated by one thousand of millimeter of gold. This is how the scarceness, the goal of 2004 IIHF World Championship ice fights, looks like.

 

The gold medal is not so valuable how it may seem to be. Now it “relaxes“ in the safe in the CIHA domicile. Not alone. There are also 60 gold medals, 40 silver and bronz ones. Why is the number of the gold medals so high? “The whole team with its staff gets the gold medals – for example, Canada´s staff is quite wide – there are five masseurs, five assistents..,“ says Zbyněk Kusý, OC chairman. CIHA General Secretary Martin Urban explains it in a different way: “It was a IIHF´s wish to give the gold medals also to the IHF Council Members,“ he said for internet newspaper iDnes.

 

The produce of the medals for the 2004 IIHF World Championship has started last June. The professor of the technical grammar school in Jablonec nad Nisou, Petr Horák, designed seven versions how the medal could look like. “Mr.Horák had to fulfil the strict regulations of tne IIHF,“ says Jan Vízek from Česká mincovna, the factory which made the medals. “For example, the lenght of the ribbon is given exactly,“ he describes. “The medal for the Prague´s and Ostrava´s tournament has silhouettes of the players and the logo of the championship on one side, on the other side the logo of the IIHF,“ he adds. “It has to weight 200 grams, the diameter has to be 7 centimetres and the spread has to be 0,5 cm,“ Vízek adds more rules.

 

What is the process of turn-out of the medal? “According to the paper design we model a 20 cm high copy from the plasterer and according to that is made a steely punch. And then we desing the right theme into that with small plane scraps,“ explains the whole process Vízek. “But it is not the end of our work. Then we need to do a few more things. For example, the attachment of the loop for the ribbon.“

 

The design has to be validated by IIHF, the specimens were controlled by  CIHA. “The price of one medal is about three or four hundreds CZK,“ says Jan Vízek from Česká mincovna. “The real price of the gold medal is not so high, but the archive one is huge,“ he says.

 

There cannot be one more piece of medals, the number is exact, how the rules of the IIHF say. The public has minimal chance to see the medal by own eyeballs. “The author of the medal has – of course – the right to get one copy. But this copy has not a floop as well as it has not its own ribbon,“ says Vízek.

 

The ice-hockey fans and suvenirs collectors don´t have to be sad. Česká mincovna has prepared – with the agreement of the CIHA -  the pack of the silver commemorative medal. „This artistic medal is 34 millimetres wide and is weights 16 grams. You can order it straight in the Česká mincovna,“ says Vízek.

[ Back ]