Talk:Peter Šťastný

Ethnic Origin
I'm rather startled you think the players' situations remotely comparable, Yankees76. Mikita emigrated as a boy and never played a lick of organized hockey in Slovakia. Stasny defected as an adult after playing years for Czechslovakia, both domestically and internationally, and played internationally for Canada during a period where he was a wanted criminal in his homeland for defecting. By contrast to Stasny serving as a Slovakian MEP, any assertion by Mikita of his embrace of Slovakian identity's been marked by any public evidence of it. Ravenswing 21:09, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * But that's not the debate. Mikita is the first European-born player to reach 1000 points. He was born Stanislaus Guoth in Sokolce, Slovakia. He's a member of the Slovakian Hockey Hall of Fame. The NHL Hockey Hall of Fame has him listed as Slovakia's all-time points leader. Both Stastny and Mikita reached 1000 points when they were Canadian citizens. I can't see how you can insert Stastny as the first European to get 1000 unless maybe you squeeze him in as the first European-trained player to reach that plateau.Yankees76 21:41, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * And just for fun, here's a pic of Stan standing with his Slovak Hall of Fame plaque http://www.slovakspectator.sk/vydania/2004048/photo/12.jpg. Public evidence ;) Yankees76 22:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Wow, quick convo... I agree with Ravenswing on this one, Mikita was 8 and immigrated legally with his parents to Canada, while Statsny was 24 and his only country was Canada, although when Slovakia broke off of Czechoslovakia, he played for the Slovak Olympic team in 1994 and is their current GM. Mikita changed his name when he moved with his aunt and uncle and played for Canada in the 1972 Summit Series. Now it might be fair to say that Mikita is Slovak and Canadian, but Stastny is wholly Slovak. [[Image:Flag of Croatia.svg|20px]] Croat Canuck  [[Image:Flag of Canada.svg|20px]] 03:43, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Mikita didn'timmigrate with his parents - he was adopted by his aunt and uncle and took their name. So maybe - we've figured out flag goes on his Wikipedia HOF plaque. By the way, Mikita also has US citizenship. And lives there. He's about as Canadian as Lennox Lewis. In other words, he was born outside of Canada, was raised there from a young age, but not birth, represented Canada internationally and then moved out of Canada to reside in another country - where he has raised a family. Ravenswing is adding to this profile that Stastny was the first non-Canadian to score 1000 points. My problem with that is that he's creating a usesless stat - generally players are grouped with their place of birth - ie: American-born, European-born - when talking about hockey landmarks. It's like adding that Mike Modano was the first left-handed player from Michigan to record 10 points agains the Toronto Maple Leafs. It's pointless. Mikita is the first European born player to score 1000 points. Stastny is the second. It's pretty simple really. It's an interesting footnote that Mikita really didn't play hockey in Slovakia or for Slovakia - but that's about it. Yankees76 04:05, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

What's in a name
Peter Stastny's name is shown in diacriticals, yet his sons Paul & Yan aren't. Should father & sons names be spelt the same (diacriticals or not) ? GoodDay 18:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * With diacritics or without diacritics would be correct, at least in some sense, for Peter; it is never incorrect to use the English alphabet when writing in English. With diacritics would probably not be correct for his sons, who never had them.  Gene Nygaard 21:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * However, that "in some sense" doesn't answer the question of what is the proper spelling to occupy the one slot available for the article's name under our naming conventions.


 * This article was recently moved by User:Darwinek with no discussion, and without providing any good reason for making the move, with no mention whatsoever of the criteria for choosing an articles name and no evidence supporting a change. Darwinek has a long history of making such undiscussed, unsupported moves.
 * Furthermore, Darwinek did a sloppy, half-assed job in making this move. He jumped in there and made the undiscussed move of the article to Peter Šťastný, but he left this talk page where it still is at Talk:Peter Stastny.
 * That improper, undiscussed move should be reverted, and the article put back where it belongs at the name under which he is best known in English, Peter Stastny, the name under which he played all his NHL games, and the name he routinely used in the United States and Canada. That's what our naming conventions call for; not some misguided notion of "correctness" of a hypothetical, unreferenced supposition of what it would have been in the language of the country in which he was born.  There aren't even any references whatsoever in the article to show that the current spelling of the article name was ever used by anybody, and even if there were, all that would really mean is that the variant spelling should be mentioned in the introduction of the article.  It does not mean that that spelling would be the proper choice for the article name under our naming conventions. Gene Nygaard 21:48, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Paul and Yan were both born in Quebec City, right? They're no more Slovak than any other children of immigrants.  That being said, I agree completely with Gene, and have long wished that diacritics be completely eliminated from Wikipedia except in instances where they are demonstrably in common (and majority) use in the English language.  Ravenswing 22:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I've moved this page back to Peter Stastny, there never was a disccusion to move it to the diacriticals. Furthermoe, I've become a little dissapointed with Darwinek's page moving methods. He's moved alot of pages (not just hockey related) to diacritical titles, without discussing such changes beforehand. GoodDay 22:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I've reverted another move to the name with diacritics back to plain old Stastny. This seems to be the usage by BBC, New York Times, Hockey Database, and so forth.  Consensus above, although old, seems to favor Stastny.  Further moves should not be done without discussion. Erudy (talk) 07:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No, further moves should not have been done without discussion. --Krm500 (talk) 09:34, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Put it back to diacritics where the current agreement is to have him placed. Player pages are to continue having diacritics whereas NHL related pages are to not have them.. -Djsasso (talk) 18:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I am in Slovakia and I got the candidates list for the European Elections posted to me by the government today. He's filled in the form and is standing as Peter Šťastný so there is no debate about what spelling of his name he uses in Slovakia. His kids presumably don't have the diacritics on their birth certificate whereas he does. Whether or not they should be copied over into and English text is a matter for style. The two politics sections need to be merged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.212.36.188 (talk) 23:23, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Best player to never...
...score 50 goals in a season? I can't think of anyone else this good who never hit that mark. Dagnabbitt 05:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, I could. Gordie Howe, off the top of my head.  (If such discussions were pertinent here, which they aren't.) Ravenswing 13:52, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Bobby Orr never scored 50 either. ;) Yankees76 15:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Scoring 1000 points in a decade
The article previously said:

2nd player in NHL history to record 1000 or more points in one decade (1119 in the 1980s).

There are a couple of problems here. First, he scored 1119 points from 1980-81 through 1990-91, but the 1980s should certainly exclude the 1990-91 season. So I have changed his decade total to 1059 points, which was his total from 1980-81 through 1989-90. Secondly, strictly speaking, he wasn't the second player to accomplish this feat. The first was Phil Esposito, who scored 1087 points from 1970-71 through 1979-80. Four players topped 1000 points from 1980-81 to 1989-90 - Gretzky (1842), Stastny (1059), Kurri (1043), and Savard (1013). Gretzky had already exceeded 1000 points for the decade by the end of the 1985-86 season, so Gretzky clearly was the second to accomplish this. I reworded things a bit to reflect this. Dsreyn (talk) 16:14, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Jersey Number Retired?
How could his number 26 be retired in Quebec? He played in the 94-95 Playoffs with St. Louis, losing in 6 games to Vancouver in the second round. After being eliminated from the playoffs, Stastny announcend his retirement. Problem is this, Quebec was eliminated in the opening round in 6 games to the defending champion New York Rangers. After being eliminated, Quebec announced on May 25, 1995 that they were sold and would move to Denver. The Nordiques were no more, and Stastny was still playing in the playoffs. So how could they have retired his number? Even if it would have happened, the Avalanche showed a complete lack of class unretiring the retired Nordiques numbers.

Reverting edit in political career section
The change is minor but the newer version uses less neutral language and also contains a factual error, as Stastny wasn't in anyway a close second to Kukan who got 80244 personal preferences to Stastny's 41847. If the author insists on putting something complimentary there, he could mention that Stastny was comfortably elected in second place as the third (non-elected) guy got 11613 votes.