Congrats to all you Czechs for the bronze and finally ending that streak of no medals in a long time.
I just want to say that when Kari Jalonen gets 1 year by getting to know the various Czech players in different leagues, I think that might create even better results. The time was probably too short for him now to find some gem players that fit his style. If K.Jalonen had more time, most of the players would've surely been the same but I'm talking about the last spots for the team that sometimes makes a big difference. Finnish coach Jukka Jalonen seems to always find the right guys for the last player slots, because he's so good at what he does.
I see K.Jalonen as a genius coach as well who will do better if he has more time with the Czech team. Both of these Jalonen coaches should be in the NHL, but NHL doesn't work that way that the best coaches in the world would be in the NHL.
You are too optimistic, next year Sweden will rise from the two difficult directives they had under Garpenlöv. It no longer happens that about thirty players refuse to play at WHC. Hallam is an even better coach in crisis situations, he can react to the course of the match if he does not do well, he changes some attacking formations and most importantly, he would never let Nordström or Wallmark play with Nylander. After the end of Garpenlöv, I believe that the air has cleared, it will start completely differently from the beginning and the NHL players will be happy to play for Tre Kronor again. I think some of the rejections were just because of Garpenlö's coach and how he understood the game. Bad coaching is a strong argument to say no and prefer to prepare in America for the new season, it just so happened that Garpenlöv stopped having players' confidence in what he was doing.
Assuming that Canada and Finland maintain the current quality and are in the semifinals, the other two pairs in the semifinals are likely to be from the following teams: Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, Czechia, USA and Germany. So two places and six candidates, I believe Sweden, have the highest quality in the NHL, the largest selection of players and they have not had a chance to play for a medal for two years in a row. That in itself is a great motivation and I think they will be there. So Finland, Canada and Sweden will be in the semifinals. There is one place left ... I will not see the Czechia there next year. And I don't even think that with this bronze medal they will suddenly start collecting medals regularly. The Czech commentator said that the first Czech goal against the USA was scored after 237 minutes of play, when no 5vs5 game was played. This is a crazy number, because they scored their goals often in overtime games, but with a balanced number of players on the ice, they were not able to score almost four whole matches. It is a statistical anomaly, as is the fact that Finland received the first goal in weakening from Cozens. There have been more negative things than positive things in the Czech game, there is a huge amount of work ahead of them and now they will have elections, there will be a new president of the federation and a power struggle will begin.
Before the start of the tournament, I wrote that it would end ten years of disgrace and bring a medal. But I can't write that the medal was deserved and won convincingly. But history will not ask about it, they have a medal, they are at point zero and they can start their hockey, so hopefully they will not waste this chance.
