U17 national team:3 days, 3 games, 3 Suomi teams, 3 losses

Hockey Youth in Action, Source: SZĽH

The 1995 born class has for a few years now had a pretty good reputation between Slovak hockey fans- in other words we´ve all been hoping that this would be the one great class after all those years of draught in Slovak junior hockey. Reason for this was the performance of mainly a number of forwards in the Slovak U18 league, who started making noise there pretty early, often outplaying their older 1994 teammates/opponents. However the U17 national team (which this season is comprised mainly of 1995 born players) has so far failed to deliver good results during this season. This week was a chance to change this trend with three games against Finland´s U17 A, B and C teams. The original roster that SZĽH (Slovenský zväz ľadového hokeja- Slovak ice-hockey federation) released back in mid-October looked like this:

G Erik Kompas Trenčín
G Denis Godla SNV

D Matúš Holenda Trenčín
D Adrian Sloboda HK 36 Skalica 1996
D Martin Pavlíček Nitra
D Martin Boboš Košice
D Adam Kasanický Poprad
D Tomáš Hrehuš Dubnica
D Patrik Bačík SLOVAN
D Adrián Kmeť HC Topoľčany

F Patrik Koyš Trenčín
F Dominik Rehák Žilina
F Peter Cehlárik Žilina
F Timotej Šille HK 36 Skalica
F Juraj Šiška Nitra 1996
F Dávid Šoltés Košice
F Andrej Lištiak Liptovský Mikuláš
F Martin Blaho Ružinov
F Róbert Varga Trnava
F Martin Reway Sparta Praha/CZE
F Matej Paulovič Färjestad BK/SWE
F Glibert Gabor AIK Stockholm/SWE


However the team that actually traveled to Finland looked slightly different (although the murmurs from some Croatian fans that Mislav Rosandić- one of several Croatian youngsters playing in Slovak youth/junior leagues, who has supposedly acquired Slovak citizenship wishes to play for Slovakia and will travel to Finland proved to be false (for now at least)) due to injuries. D Adam Kasanický, F Róbert Varga and F Martin Reway were replaced by D Dávid Gál, F Adam Dauda and F Martin Pleša. The biggest blow to the team was probably Reway´s as he´s so far scored 31 points in 12 Czech U18 Extraliga games and has been a regular scorer even with the 1994 NT.  Also missing was F Tomáš Torok, who has been one of the best 1995 forwards (and who just before the season switched from Czech Slavia Praha to the juniors of Slovak HKM Zvolen) who hasn´t played so far this season because of his continuous health trouble.  Anyway, the team hasn´t returned with very flattering results- 3 losses in 3 days. I´d like to hope that at least the first one was also influenced by the long travel that they took by bus all the way to Finland from Slovakia. For those interested in the results/scores:



Finland U17 C- Slovakia U17 5-2 (3-0,1-2,1-0)
30. Cehlárik (Rehák), 37. Koyš


Finland U17 B- Slovakia U17 5-4 (2-1,1-2,2-1)
17. Paulovič (Rehák), 23. Rehák, 34. Šiška (Koyš), 48. Pleša (Šille, Hrehuš)


Finland U17- Slovakia U17 6-2 (2-0, 2-0, 2-2)
47. Pavlíček (Rehák), 50. Šoltés (Koyš)


Next games ahead for the U17 NTs are already in two weeks when they´ll travel to Russia for a 4 Nations Tourney that includes the Russians, the Swiss and the American U17 NTDP. This is the tournament, where the 1992 born class suffered an embarassingly high loss to Russia 3 years ago (ironically the 1993 class that got relagated from the Elite U18 IHWC actually had the best recent Slovak performance at the tourney two years ago), so let´s keep our finger crossed that the 95ers will finally find their mojo and that their results will be better than that. However since all the other NTs also have games sheduled for this time it is quite possible that the top players will travel with the U18 team to Denmark, where the U18 team is sheduled to play the annual 4 countries tournament played between SVK, Denmark, Germany and Belarus.