“Slovak Hockey Players Prepare for World Championships: Craig Ramsay Calls for Belief and Responsibility”

Ever since he joined the Slovak hockey team, Craig Ramsay has been repeating that the players have to believe in each other, and it is no different this time either. “We tried to get the boys excited. I believe in them and they have to believe in themselves too.”

And do they believe each other?

“In my opinion, yes. We talk about it from the beginning of preparation that they have to believe in what we are doing. They have to believe in the coaches, but especially in themselves. That’s why I told them yesterday that they had to shoot. It’s easy to pass and give the puck to someone else. You have to believe in yourself, take responsibility, use the opportunity.”

At the first training session on Wednesday, roughly halfway through, Craig Ramsay shouted and called all the players to him. He told them that they have to believe in themselves, they have to shoot more and they can’t be afraid to take responsibility. Was it better in the second practice on Thursday?

“Not very much. Today we had one incident where I lost my mind again. But we’re getting there.”

However, Marek Hrivík, as one of the team’s leaders, believes that the situation will be completely different already in the first sharp meeting. “The situation will be a little different in the match. It’s not art to come to training and shoot teammates in the ankles. You should rather concentrate on that in the match. We will have to play more directly, there will definitely be shots.”

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Marek Hrivík is also an important member of the first power formation, which does not feature any defender. Marek Hrivík is in the position of false defender, he is complemented by Libor Hudáček, Peter Cehlárik, Richard Pánik and Miloš Kelemen.

“I’ve been playing like that for some 2-3 years, so it’s nothing new for me. Martin Gernát was originally on it, but since he was sidelined by an injury, it changed a bit.” said Marek Hrivík about the new power forward formation.

What does Craig Ramsay say about the power play without a defender? “Our power play is special. One minute it can look really good and the next minute it’s completely out of whack. It’s quite frustrating, but I trust them.”

The coaches also made a change in the first formation. Marek Hrivík will no longer start alongside Petr Cehlárik.

“By the time the tournament ends, they will probably play together again. We wanted to make a difference, sometimes you need that. In the NHL, I played with the same teammates for 82 games, but once in a while the coach split us up and switched attacks. One player then managed to score ten times in four games as the change spurred him on. Then he put the attacks back as they were,” Craig Ramsay commented on the change.

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One of the question marks before the first match is still the position of the goalkeeper. Even the head coach did not reveal who will stand between the three poles. “I leave the decision to the goalkeeper coach. I only changed his decision once and I was wrong. So I try not to do that.”

The first duel will be a derby against the Czech Republic, which has an older and more experienced team. “I’m not interested in that at all. Most of the teams we play against have good older players or even hockey players from the NHL.

But I don’t care. I don’t care about other teams as much as maybe some other coaches. I especially look at my team and I want them to believe in what they are doing. That’s the most important thing. We don’t worry about other teams, we want to play our game and what happens, happens.” said Craig Ramsay.

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The Canadian coach knows that his charges cannot play without their heads and cannot be absorbed by the fact that it is a derby match. “When you go into a meeting too excited and do too much, you can lose it in the first 5 minutes. We have to play our game for the whole 60 minutes, that’s what we try to explain to the players.”

At the end, Craig Ramsay commented on the great rivalry between Slovakia and the Czech Republic. “We have such rivalries in the NHL, for example between Montreal and Buffalo. We in Buffalo had more francophone players than them and we met in the playoffs.

Playing against the Czech Republic is really special. I know the story of both countries and how they split, the best split in history. But we still feel that we want to show them that we can play with them.”

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