Nový elected to IIHF Hall of Fame

The International Ice Hockey Association announced on Friday its list of inductees to the International Hockey Hall of Fame  for 2012, and among them is former Czech great Milan Nový.

Nový at the 1976 Canada Cup. Photo: tm50.

Nový was one of international hockey's greatest stars of the 1970s; some hailed him as the best centre in the world at the time. He was the biggest star during Czechoslovakia's run of back-to-back World Championships in 1976 and 1977, scoring 36 points over 14 games in those two tournaments. Over his career, he scored 122 goals in 214 games with the national team.

The Kladno native became a noted name among North American hockey fans at the 1976 Canada Cup, where he helped lead Czechoslovakia into the tournament final with 8 points in seven games, which included scoring the lone goal in a 1-0 victory over Canada during the round-robin phase of the tournament. He was named to the tournament all-star team at centre.

Domestically, he played at the top level of Czechoslovakian hockey from 1968 to 1982 and 1986 to 1989 for Kladno and Jihlava, where he scored 594 career goals. His most impressive season was 1976-77, when he scored 59 goals in only 44 games for Kladno. He also played one season for the NHL's Washington Capitals in 1982-83 and briefly for Swiss club Zürich SC Lions and Austrian club Wiener EV before ruturning home.

For more on Nový's life and career, visit his profile at GreatestHockeyLegends.com.

Other inductees are Russian Pavel Bure, Finn Raimo Helminen, American Phil Housley, and Canadian coach Andy Murray.

From IIHF.com, here is a list of Czechs that have previously been inducted into the Hall:

PLAYER	BORN	INDUCTED	CATEGORY
Quido Adamec	1924	2005	Referee
Vladimír Bouzek	1920	2007	Player
Vlastimil Bubník	1931	1997	Player
Luděk Bukač	1935	2007	Builder
Josef Černý	1939	2007	Player
Jaroslav Drobný	1921	1997	Player
Karel Gut	1927	1998	Player
Ivan Hlinka	1950	2002	Player
Jiří Holeček	1944	1998	Player
Jiří Holík	1944	1999	Player
Vladimír Kostka	1922	1997	Builder
Oldřich Machač	1944	1999	Player
Josef Maleček	1903	2003	Player
Vladimír Martinec	1949	2001	Player
Bohumil Modrý	1916	2011	Player
Václav Nedomanský	1944	1997	Player
Milan Nový	1951	2012	Player
František Pospíšil	1944	1999	Player
Miroslav Šubrt	1926	2004	Builder
Jan Suchý	1944	2009	Player
František Tikal	1933	2004	Player
Vladimír Zábrodský	1923	1997	Player