photo: Tim Austen/IIHF
Can you name someone who won medals in international hockey as a player and then as a coach, who then had a son who won more international medals as a player and as a coach?
The only tandem to fit that bill are Josef Augusta and his son, Patrik, who is coaching the Czechs here in Minneapolis, his third U20 with the team.
Josef played in four World Championships between 1969 and 1978, winning three silver medals and one bronze. He also won a silver at the 1976 Olympics. As a coach, Josef won gold at the 2000 and 2001 World Championship.
Patrik, meanwhile, won two bronze medals in 1992 as a player, one at the Olympics and another at the World Championship a few months later. Then, as a head coach, he has guided the Czech juniors to back-to-back bronze medals in 2024 and ’25.
“Those were special times,” Patrik reminisced. “[My dad] coached me since junior and he coached me in the elite league in Dukla when we won the league championship together. Then when I was 22 years old, I went over to play in North America, and he was starting to coach the national team. I remember the first time he won the World Championship as a head coach. I was on vacation with my wife driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, and I was calling from a phone booth right at the road. I stood there with my arms in the air cheering for my dad. We had a very speck relationship, not just like father and son but more like very close friends. I miss him every day. It's been almost nine years already. Time flies. But I look up to him all the time, and I'm trying to live up to how he lived.”
Patrik made his NHL debut with the Toronto Maple Leafs during the 1993-94 season. He played only two games, but they were much more important than just a number.
“It was a big deal for our family because nobody had played in the NHL before,” Patrik explained. “My dad put his name on the board at the Olympics and World Championships, and being a successful coach, and I put the Augusta name in the NHL stats, so that was fun. We always talked about it.”
Augusta’s NHL dreams were greatly improved by those two medals in 1992.
“When I came back from the Olympics with the bronze medal around my neck, that was the first time my dad told me I did well,” he said, laughing. “He was my coach most of my career, so whenever he wanted to tell me I played well he told my mom and my mom told me. But when you coach your son, it has to be like that. You don't want everyone thinking he's giving me something extra.”
Patrik is in his third year as coach of Czechia’s junior team, but it was never a career plan.
“Right after I retired,” he continued, “I scouted for the Phoenix Coyotes for two years. But after that I felt like I needed more action, so I started to coach in my hometown as an assistant for the junior team. Then after I got my A licence in Czechia, I decided I wanted to be a head coach, so I started at the beginning, coaching U16, U17, U18. From there I went to the elite league as a head coach for six seasons, and then I took a year off because I needed knee surgery. And then I got a call from the federation asking if I wanted to do U20.”
The Czechs won a silver medal at the 2023 World Juniors under coach Radim Rulik, their first U20 medal since 2005. Augusta continued the podium success in each of the next two years and is aiming for a hat trick later week. It’s a different job coaching teenagers instead of grown men, but he loves it.
“I love the juniors with their energy,” he said. “Sometimes they make me feel like the old guy, but there are some things we did in my era that worked, and I try to tell these guys they should be doing the same thing. But they want to listen. They want to be successful.”
Successful? Josef and Patrik Augusta are the very embodiment of that term. And they have the medals to prove it, as players and coaches.
The only tandem to fit that bill are Josef Augusta and his son, Patrik, who is coaching the Czechs here in Minneapolis, his third U20 with the team.
Josef played in four World Championships between 1969 and 1978, winning three silver medals and one bronze. He also won a silver at the 1976 Olympics. As a coach, Josef won gold at the 2000 and 2001 World Championship.
Patrik, meanwhile, won two bronze medals in 1992 as a player, one at the Olympics and another at the World Championship a few months later. Then, as a head coach, he has guided the Czech juniors to back-to-back bronze medals in 2024 and ’25.
“Those were special times,” Patrik reminisced. “[My dad] coached me since junior and he coached me in the elite league in Dukla when we won the league championship together. Then when I was 22 years old, I went over to play in North America, and he was starting to coach the national team. I remember the first time he won the World Championship as a head coach. I was on vacation with my wife driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, and I was calling from a phone booth right at the road. I stood there with my arms in the air cheering for my dad. We had a very speck relationship, not just like father and son but more like very close friends. I miss him every day. It's been almost nine years already. Time flies. But I look up to him all the time, and I'm trying to live up to how he lived.”
Patrik made his NHL debut with the Toronto Maple Leafs during the 1993-94 season. He played only two games, but they were much more important than just a number.
“It was a big deal for our family because nobody had played in the NHL before,” Patrik explained. “My dad put his name on the board at the Olympics and World Championships, and being a successful coach, and I put the Augusta name in the NHL stats, so that was fun. We always talked about it.”
Augusta’s NHL dreams were greatly improved by those two medals in 1992.
“When I came back from the Olympics with the bronze medal around my neck, that was the first time my dad told me I did well,” he said, laughing. “He was my coach most of my career, so whenever he wanted to tell me I played well he told my mom and my mom told me. But when you coach your son, it has to be like that. You don't want everyone thinking he's giving me something extra.”
Patrik is in his third year as coach of Czechia’s junior team, but it was never a career plan.
“Right after I retired,” he continued, “I scouted for the Phoenix Coyotes for two years. But after that I felt like I needed more action, so I started to coach in my hometown as an assistant for the junior team. Then after I got my A licence in Czechia, I decided I wanted to be a head coach, so I started at the beginning, coaching U16, U17, U18. From there I went to the elite league as a head coach for six seasons, and then I took a year off because I needed knee surgery. And then I got a call from the federation asking if I wanted to do U20.”
The Czechs won a silver medal at the 2023 World Juniors under coach Radim Rulik, their first U20 medal since 2005. Augusta continued the podium success in each of the next two years and is aiming for a hat trick later week. It’s a different job coaching teenagers instead of grown men, but he loves it.
“I love the juniors with their energy,” he said. “Sometimes they make me feel like the old guy, but there are some things we did in my era that worked, and I try to tell these guys they should be doing the same thing. But they want to listen. They want to be successful.”
Successful? Josef and Patrik Augusta are the very embodiment of that term. And they have the medals to prove it, as players and coaches.