After most have already put away their winter equipment for this season, the peak of the season is just beginning for hockey players. The national playoffs are being played, and there are only a good three weeks to go until the start of the 2015 elite division world championship in ice hockey, which will once again be Slovenian in color. The competition, this time hosted by the Czech Republic, starts on Labor Day, May 1 in Ostrava, with the second venue being the capital Prague. The grand final will take place on May 17.
2015 Elite Division Ice Hockey World Championship in the Czech Republic, there will also be a Slovenian color, as the Slovenian national team, which in recent years has been on the "regular line" between the elite and group B, last year in South Korea won a ticket for group A again. Finally, they competed against the best national teams in the world at the Olympic Games, and even earlier in Stockholm years 2013, so that the one-year break in the most elite division was not even that familiar. Lynxes otherwise, they haven't been poplar food for a long time, as they proved last in Sochi, where they also mixed strenje with distinct favorites. Now they want to transfer this success story, known as the Russian fairy tale, to Division I.
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The World Championship in the Czech Republic, where the poles will be crossed 16 national teams, will be on the menu between May 1 and 17, and our boys (in this order) will compete in Ostrava (northeast of the Czech Republic on the Polish border) with Slovakia, Norway, Belarus, Russia, Denmark, Finland and the USA (prices of tickets that are still available vary depending on the occupancy of the hall between 10.75 and 62.60 euros). The group stage will take place until May 12, May 14 is reserved for the quarter-final matches, May 16 for the semi-finals, and May 17 for the "grand" final. The Czech Republic is hoping for a record visit, which it held from 2004 until last year, when it was taken from it Minsk (Belarus). Since the tickets are drying up like spring snow, it already smells like something new (currently this 643 thousand viewers). The halls where the matches will be played are used to a rush of fans, as the clubs Slavia (Prague) and Vitkovice (Ostrava) play in them, but in May it can be expected that they will be bursting at the seams like never before.
Slovenian national teams, whose appetites grew with the success in Sochi, have already started preparations for the world championship of the most elite division, selector Matjaž Kopitar however, he called 22 players for the first set of preparations (unfortunately, David Rodman has already dropped out due to injury), but of course the list is far from complete, as many still have club commitments. The Lynx will play six friendly matches before May, and the "tone rehearsal" will be the match against Germany on April 29.
Matches of the Slovenian national team (group stage):
- May 2: Belarus - Slovenia, 6:15 p.m
- May 3: Russia - Slovenia, 12:15 p.m
- May 5: Slovakia - Slovenia, 8:15 p.m
- May 7: Finland - Slovenia, 8:15 p.m
- May 8: Slovenia - Norway, 4:15 p.m
- May 10: Slovenia - USA, 4:15 p.m
- May 11: Slovenia - Denmark, 8:15 p.m
More information:
www.iihfworlds2015.com
