“Slovakian Hockey Players Suffered a 1-0 Victory Over Slovenia and Face Team Tension Ahead of Quarterfinals Hope”

The positives are 3 points and 2 songs

“The positive is three points and they played two songs for us – the anthem and one in the cabin,” said Marián Gáborík in the RTVS studio to the Italian dance song Sarà perché ti amo, during which the national team celebrates its victories in Riga.

Apart from the mentioned positives, there were not many reasons to celebrate. “We suffered in front of the televisions and many times it was also suffering on the ice. We live, but it has to get better. In the quarterfinals, we wouldn’t have done much with such a performance,” continued the Stanley Cup winner.

Craig Ramsay’s men were better in the opening two periods, but almost zero in terms of effectiveness. After 15 seconds of the middle part, Richard Pánik scored, no other puck ended up in the goal.

“The first two thirds were not bad from our side. We paid the price for not taking a bigger lead. It almost backfired on us. The result was clearly in favor of the Slovenians. In the current situation, three points are important for us. We lack the killer instinct,” said Vladimír Országh, the world champion from Gothenburg 2002.

If it wasn’t for Škorvánka, we won’t win

The outsider, who has not scored at the tournament so far and will definitely be relegated to the B-division, outshot the Slovak hockey players 16:9 in the 3rd period. The goalkeeper has already raised the flag several times at the World Cup. In this case, Stanislav Škorvánek, who replaced Samuel Hlavaj after three matches spent on the substitutes’ bench.

“If it wasn’t for him, we won’t win. That’s a bare fact. It is no coincidence that we won two matches in the tournament and after both of them we sing the praises of the goalkeepers. If we’re going to criticize anyone, it can’t be the goalkeepers. Every game they gave our team a chance to win. The two wins were largely thanks to them,” emphasized Boris Valábik.

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VIDEO: Watch the highlights from the match between Slovenia and Slovakia at the 2023 World Hockey Championship

Valábik: I will not kick someone who is down

He assessed the match shyly: “I have a bit of schizophrenia. On the one hand, three important points and we didn’t get a goal, but it wasn’t a good game. The third third was a negative surprise for many of us. But I’m not going to kick someone who’s down. Even though our guys won, they’re down for me right now.”

The post-match shots from the Slovakian booth also corresponded to this. “We saw that it was not ideal. Even during the match, there was a lot of arguing with each other, but not in a constructive way. There was a bit of nervousness. You could see it right after the match, when the team should have been enjoying it,” continued Valábik.

Hrivík – Hudáček? A tense situation

He went into more detail about the conflict between Libor Hudáček and Marek Hrivík after the final siren: “You may have noticed how Hrivík, as the captain, blames Hudáček for something. Then he even came back. This is already a tense situation. Both Hrivík and Cehlárik made it clear to Hudáček that they were not satisfied with something.”

What was it about? According to Gáborík, the disagreement was caused by two selfish attempts by Hudáček to score across all lines during the final game of Slovenia without a goalkeeper. Once it was forbidden to release. The Slovaks could not make substitutions and remained under pressure.

“He wants to score a goal very much, but in some situations he shouldn’t try so hard,” said the former elite scorer. He also reproached Hudáček for unnecessary exclusions.

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Hudáček can’t do it, but he has to be a team player

“There you have to be a team player and not think about scoring a goal. It’s 1-0, you’re playing to keep your chance for the quarterfinals, something you’ve been working on throughout the tournament. And not only you. Teamwork is about realizing that your teammates and the people next to you are working on something, throwing themselves into shots.

Hudáček certainly feels the pressure on himself. He is there to score goals and he just doesn’t do it. Trying to break it like this is very risky and the team leaders have made it clear that they don’t like it,” Valábik pointed out.

VIDEO: Hrivík after the match also reproached Hudáček:

Ramsay: We used to fight

Coach Ramsay commented on the conflict between two experienced strikers in their thirties: “They are willing to criticize each other, because to win a match you need every single player. Everyone has to sacrifice for the team.

These things can happen. Sometimes a leader has to take matters into his own hands. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I’m not worried. We used to fight with our teammates at training. It’s part of building a team.”

The Slovak hockey players fulfilled the winning imperative and simplified the numbers in the Slovak progression calculators. In the last game in the group on Tuesday from 11:20 against Norway, they need to score in full and at the same time they need a victory for Switzerland in regular time over Latvia.

More about the World Hockey Championship 2023