yesterday 21:05
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France and Austria will play at this year’s World Hockey Championships in Finland. At the championship, they will replace Russia and Belarus, which the International Hockey Federation (IIHF) eliminated after the military invasion of Ukraine. The French will thus be rivals of Slovak hockey players in the Helsinki A-group.
Austria will replace Belarus in the basic B-group in Tampere. According to Friday’s decision of the IIHF Council, the match program will not change, so the French will be Slovakia’s first opponent at the World Cup on May 13.
Other participants in the A-group are Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Kazakhstan and Italy. The B-group will feature Finland, the USA, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Norway, the United Kingdom and Austria. The last team from both groups will be relegated to the lower division.
After the exclusion of Russia and Belarus, the IIHF Council also changed the composition of other championships. Slovak hockey players under 18 moved higher to this year’s elite World Cup instead of Russia.
The championship should take place in June in the USA, young Slovaks will play in the A-group with the home team, Canada and Finland. Originally, they were to start in the A-Group of the 1st Division of the World Championships in Győr, Hungary. The exact date and venues of the championship in the USA are not yet known.
“We were very pleased with the decision of the IIHF Council, as we were supposed to play in Győr in two weeks and a part of the squad will complete the EYOF in Finland in the coming days. In terms of organization, logistics and load settings, this would be challenging. That’s why we’re glad we got into the elite. We will definitely prepare the girls for the August championship as best we can, ” said for the portal hockeyslovakia.sk women’s national team manager Ľubomíra Kožanová. The IIHF decision also helped Slovak girls to automatically participate in another EYOF.
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The Slovak men’s eighteen did not experience a similar upward shift. They will start in less than a month at the domestic tournament of the A-group of the 1st division of the World Championships in Piešťany, from which, however, up to two teams will win a place one level higher.
The August Junior Under-20 Championship will have ten participants, with Latvians added to the list instead of Russia. It will take place in Canada and no one in the highest category will descend. The format of the junior championship in 2023 is still under solution.
The program of the A-Group I. Division of the Women’s World Championship, which will welcome the French city of Angers at the end of April, has also changed. The Swedes dropped out of the original six participants and moved into the elite category. The Slovaks will fight for a single promotion against the four of France, Norway, Austria and the Netherlands.
“We will have one less match. One strong opponent dropped out of our group, but there are other quality opponents. That is why we will prepare responsibly and try to move forward. ” stated Kožanová.
A big gesture from Tomáš Tatar, he gave a hockey stick to a Slovak fan after the match:
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