Ice Hockey World Championships
Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in January 1993. The IIHF recognized the Czech Republic's team as the successor to Czechoslovakia and it retained its position in the top division. Slovakia's team began in the lowest division (Pool C) in 1994 and was forced to work its way up. Following this, the next decade was dominated by the so-called "Big Six"–Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the United States. From 1992 to 1996, five different teams won the World Championship. At the 1993 World Championships, Russia won its first title as an independent nation and the Czech Republic won its first medal (bronze). In 1994, the Canadian team finished the preliminary round undefeated and defeated Finland in the final to win their first World Championship since 1961. The following year in Sweden, the Finnish team won its first ever World Championship. Led by their top line of Saku Koivu, Ville Peltonen and Jere Lehtinen, the Finns defeated rival Sweden in the gold medal game. At the 1995 Pool B championships, Slovakia, led by Peter Šťastný won Pool B and was promoted to the top division, where it has remained ever since. In 1996, the Czech Republic won its first World Championship as a separate country. During this period, the United States was the only one of the "Big Six" not to win the World Championship, although they did win the 1996 World Cup of Hockey and their bronze at that year's World Championship was their first medal since 1962.
In the mid-1990s, several new teams such as Slovakia, Latvia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine were quickly improving and older nations such as Austria, France, Italy, Norway and Switzerland were at risk of being relegated to Pool B. The IIHF feared that it would lose advertising revenue if that happened, so the number of teams was increased to 16 starting in 1998.
Tanks of Czechoslovakia
Thereafter, Czechoslovakia came under continuous pressure from the revisionist governments of Germany and Hungary. Eventually, this led to the Munich Agreement of September 1938, which allowed Nazi Germany to partially dismember the country by occupying what was called the Sudetenland, a region with a German-speaking majority bordering Germany and Austria. The Germans seized a large amount of the Czechoslovakian designed tanks and armored vehicles when they occupied Bohemia-Moravia in March 1939. The remainder of "rump" Czechoslovakia was renamed Czecho-Slovakia and included a greater degree of Slovak political autonomy.
After the Munich Agreement and its Vienna Award, Nazi Germany threatened to annex part of Slovakia and allow the remaining regions to be partitioned by Hungary or Poland unless independence was declared. Thus, Slovakia seceded from Czecho-Slovakia in March 1939 and allied itself, as demanded by Germany, with Hitler's coalition. The government of the First Slovak Republic, led by Jozef Tiso and Vojtech Tuka, was strongly influenced by Germany and gradually became a puppet regime in many respects.