WJC: 2025 Czech Team

[NyQuil]

Congrats and good luck the rest of the way!

I had a sinking feeling when there were no upsets until our game.

 

[Czechboy]

That is 3 of last 4 against Canada..

Opening game of juniors
Lost gold game in it
Eliminated them in quarters last year
Eliminated them in quarters this year in Canada.

4 straight semis.

I mean.. not so shabby.

Our last 4 quarter wins were USA, Swiss, Canada and Canada.

 

[ORRFForever]

Congrats and good luck the rest of the way!

Yes. Well deserved. I will be rooting for Czechia and Sweden - you are both due and deserving.

 

[Czechboy]

Yes. Well deserved. I will be rooting for Czechia and Sweden - you are both due.

This has Sweden vs US final written all over it. And thank you.

 

[ORRFForever]

This has Sweden vs US final written all over it. And thank you.

We'll see.

 

[Czechboy]

We'll see.

I will be watching on a phone on the highway.lol. Hope the 5g is good.

 

[ORRFForever]

I will be watching on a phone on the highway.lol. Hope the 5g is good.

Be careful, my friend.

 

[Czechboy]

He was tapping the stick for the pass right before too.

 

[BigBadBoar]

I must say I was really impressed tonight. Of course we were lucky with the last PP because Gibson's foul clearly wasn't intentional, he wanted to body check his opponent and came a bit late. This can happen to any player, just a bad luck. But overall the Czech team was playing a great game. There was a very little to criticize in terms of game system. Everybody was almost always precisely where should he be in the given situation. Canada was looking extremely nervous but they made a great push towards the end and as I already wrote, we were lucky with that unfortunate hit by Gibson. Then, the PP pattern on the 4th goal was delicious.

I was a bit disappointed with the Canadian fans though. I understand everybody is rooting for their team and driven by emotions but blaming this loss on the refs was quite pathetic. There were maybe 2 controversial calls on each side, just like in any hockey game. Definitely nothing scandalous. The 5+20 penalty was a right call (confirmed by a video review) and it even wasn't any game breaker after all. The disallowed goal for Canada was disallowed correctly too. The salty reactions from the crowd were over the top, including throwing cans on the ice after the final horn. Completely needless.

 

[Czechboy]

And a lot of these guys are back next year... Jiricek, fibigr, jecho, holinka, Sikora, hradec, cihar, Novotny, galvas, hradec, jiricek and kos? I may be wrong on a few.. the pivo is flowing

Add Mrtka and benak.

Then guys like titlbach and Curran. time for skok? Hoping milota is still eligible.

And it may be time for our big beast katolicky.

 

[Eye of Ra]

Congratulations, well deserved.

 

[Czechboy]

Congratulations, well deserved.

Made your life a lot easier! I think Sweden has a great gold medal chance here.

 

[FourQuarters]

Really like how Stancl played!
Congrats, Czechia fans and boys!

 

[Czechboy]

Really like how Stancl played!
Congrats, Czechia fans and boys

Think stancl has 3 points against Canada in quarter finals. I love him too.lol

 

[Czechboy]

Nice video of our winning celebration

 

[Goodman68]

I didn't believe it would happen. Although, if Canada was very unlucky last year, this year they defeated themselves, mainly due to their lack of discipline. But that's only their fault.
Otherwise, we played a very disciplined game. Anything can happen in the semi-finals.

 

[Czechboy]

Hrabals 3 goals against were all tips. He was exceptional...

 

[Dempsey]

How has Hradec looked? Does he have decent NHL potential?

 

[Goodman68]

Please remove just one player from the lineup. And that's number 20. A completely useless player.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

And a lot of these guys are back next year... Jiricek, fibigr, jecho, holinka, Sikora, hradec, cihar, Novotny, galvas, hradec, jiricek and kos? I may be wrong on a few.. the pivo is flowing

Add Mrtka and benak.

Then guys like titlbach and Curran. time for skok? Hoping milota is still eligible.

And it may be time for our big beast katolicky.

Excited enough about Hradec to name him twice?

He's not eligible though. Holinka also isn't. All the others, yes. And add Dravecky to the ones you didn't name.

Cihar-Jecho-Benak
Kos-Sikora-Novotny
Katolicky-Curran-Tittlbach
Polletin-Zahesky-Kubiesa
Novak

Galvas-Jiricek
Fibigr-Mrtka
Skok-Dravecky
Mikel

Milota
Stebetak
Someone help me out with a third goaltender?

I think that's another medal contender.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Of course I'm happy to see Canada lose, but I love the passion of the Czech players and fans. You guys have become a big dog at these junior tournaments the last few years. My hot-take is that you guys are above Finland at these junior tournaments at this point.

If we could keep this level of Czechia over time, get Finland going again, and somehow the Russia issue gets resolved and we could have 6 top level teams? That'd be fantastic.

 

[Goodman68]

Excited enough about Hradec to name him twice?

He's not eligible though. Holinka also isn't. All the others, yes. And add Dravecky to the ones you didn't name.

Cihar-Jecho-Benak
Kos-Sikora-Novotny
Katolicky-Curran-Tittlbach
Polletin-Zahesky-Kubiesa
Novak

Galvas-Jiricek
Fibigr-Mrtka
Skok-Dravecky
Mikel

Milota
Stebetak
Someone help me out with a third goaltender?

I think that's another medal contender.

I think you're pretty close with that lineup. But I would probably change two players from the attack. I've always liked Pavlík and I hope that Pekař will play in a little better form next year. I would change those two players for Titlbach and Kubiesa

 

[Old Man Jags]

It is amazing how anticipating this tournament has changed for me. It always felt that we were about to watch yet another example of how Czech hockey had fallen and I expected that there was always a huge likelihood of a boys v men kind of moment where our team would embarrass ourselves against Canada or the US, or perhaps another team like Sweden. In contrast, ahead of this tournament i just thought “I am not worried at all”. It obviously doesn’t mean that I suddenly consider us favourites against the very top teams - I’d still think that Canada, the US and Sweden would go into games against us as the more likely to win. But I now expect mature performances and that the team has a decent chance to win or at least will acquit itself well even if it loses. I don’t expect them to be on the receiving end of a blow-out. Those might still happen sometimes, but it would be a real surprise rather than a grim likelihood.

The players ahead of difficult games also sound completely different compared to years past. The message in interviews before the Canada game from all the Czech players was “we are quietly confident that we might win this thing”. Very, very different from the fear they seemed to approach these matchups with in the past.

As I said, still not exactly favourites going into games against the very top nations, but we are legitimately back along the top nations and on a good day can beat any team without it being considered a completely unexpected sensation.

 

[Goodman68]

As I didn't really believe in the progress after the basic group (after very good performances, getting Canada as an opponent seemed downright bad luck to me), so now I think I can safely write that this is already a successful tournament. And that Augusta was right to pick the players he did. If I have to be critical of any player, it is Petr. I don't believe that if Novotný played instead, he would be worse. He is absolutely unable to assert himself on the ice and even unbelievably sloppy the situation before Canada's first goal.

 

[llwyd]

This has Sweden vs US final written all over it. And thank you.

Whatevs Though of those three left losing to the Czechs would be overwhelmingly least painful!