Illustration photo – Para Hockey World Championship – match: Czech Republic – USA, June 20, 2021 in Ostrava. From left, Joshua Misiewicz from the USA and goalkeeper Martin Kudela from the Czech Republic. of the Republic.
Prague – Czech para-hockey players will try to win the first medal in history at the upcoming world championship in Moose Jaw, Canada. Their highest so far is three fourth places, two years ago at the championship in Ostrava they finished fifth after a quarter-final defeat to Russia.
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“We came away with medals from the last two tournaments in Canada and Italy. I hope we will use it at the World Championship as well. The mood in the cabin and on the ice is great,” said captain Radek Zelinka on the parahockey.cz website. “I won't say that we don't think about her, it's within our power. We'll go match by match and see where our opponents in Canada will let us,” he said.
The Czech team will face Korea, USA and Canada in the basic group A from Sunday. The top two, which should be overseas teams, advance directly to the semi-finals. The teams in third and fourth place face the quarter-finals against the top two from Group B, which includes China, Norway, Germany and Italy.
“We will play the matches in the group over three days, and each one of them matters. But the first one is the most important, because Korea is the most measurable opponent for us and it will be mainly about better deployment in the tournament spider,” said coach Jakub Novotný, adding that Canada and the US is still “rebounded”.
The Americans and Canadians have met in the finals at the last five championships, with Team USA winning three times. “We know very well that these two teams are always one step ahead, but we have already trained against them and we have perhaps come close to them in terms of performance since the last World Cup,” believes Novotný.
At the previous WC in the domestic environment The Czech Republic initially lost 0:2 to Korea. “It is a very unpleasant opponent, they have fast players, they are pushy. It will probably be about the first goal that can decide our first match. But we are well prepared for them,” believes Zelinka.
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Goalkeepers: Martin Kudela, Michal Vápenka, Petr Boček,
Defenders: Pavel Kubeš, Pavel Doležal, Radek Zelinka, Karel Wágner, David Vrubel,
forwards: Michal Geier, Zdeněk Hábl, Miroslav Novotný, Alex Ohar, Patrik Sedláček, Václav Hečko, Filip Veselý, Martin Žižlavský.
