Band led by hockey legend Hašek’s daughter scores Czech Eurovision nom

Electro-pop band We Are Domi will represent the Czech Republic at the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Turin, Italy, on May 10–14. The country so far has not had a good record in the contest, so hopes are high that the band will at least make it to the televised finals, which is the most-watched non-sporting event in the world.

We Are Domi is led by 26-year-old singer Dominika Hašková, daughter of the famous Czech hockey player Dominik Hašek, who led the Czech national ice hockey team to its first and only Olympic gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

The group’s winning song is “Light Off.” The video features the trio in a smoke-filled studio predominantly lit in blue, with Hašková singing front and center, while the bandmates play keyboards and guitar (with a bow) in the background.

After winning, the band simply said "thank you" on Instagram.

We Are Domi formed in 2018 in the UK, and is currently based in Prague. Hašková met her bandmates guitarist Casper Hatlestad and keyboardist Benjamin Rekstad in a university in Leeds, UK. Hašková was born in Buffalo, New York, where her father was a goalie for the Buffalo Sabres. In 2010, she participated in the contest show Czechoslovakia Has Talent (Československo má talent). Her two bandmates are both from Norway.

The band is known for high-energy performances that blend dance, electro, and Scandinavian influences, thanks to their origins on the dance floors of London, Prague, and Oslo.

We Are Domi beat six other competitors. An international jury decision accounted for 50 percent, and online voting from Czech and international fans accounted for 25 percent each.

The other competitors, in order from most to least popular, were Elis Mraz, Giudi, Emma Smetana & Jordan Haj, Skywalker, Annabelle, and the Valentines.

Six of the jurors put We Are Domi in first place, and four more had them second. We Are Domi also won the international audience vote, while Emma Smetana & Jordan Haj won the Czech audience vote with We Are Domi coming in fourth.

The Czech Republic is among the first to announce the name of the band that will compete. Only four others out of the 41 participating nations have done so. The reason that Czech Television, which oversees the national selection, accelerated announcement by a month is to give the winner more time to prepare.

Last year’s Czech entry Benny Cristo, though, had over a year to prepare due to the 2020 contest being postponed due to Covid, and came in second to last in his group in the semifinals, failing to qualify for the big show.

If We Are Domi wins in the finals in Turin, the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest will be held in the Czech Republic.

The Eurovision Song Contest is organized by members of the European Broadcasting Union. It was first held in 1956 and is one of the longest-running shows in television history.

The Czech Republic first participated in Eurovision between 2007 and ’09 but failed to make the finals all three times, and even scored zero points once. The country dropped out after that and did not participate again until 2015.

Since then, it has only made the finals three times. Mikolas Josef had the country’s best showing ever in 2018 with “Lie to Me” coming in sixth place in the finals. Karel Gott participated in Eurovision in 1968, representing Austria, but he did not win.