The Slovak Ice Hockey Association announced nominations for the upcoming tournaments and meetings of national hockey representatives of all age categories. Also, our Club will have large representation in respective selections.

In the period from February 4 to 8 the senior representation will have its training camp in the ice-hockey stadium in Poprad where it will then participate in Kaufland Cup, at which it will defend last year's triumph from Bratislava. Also, this year the Belorussian Selection and Russian Olympic Selection will test the skills of the Slovaks.  Craig Ramsay, the head coach of the Slovak national team, nominated a total of 22 players for the tournament and our Club will have the largest representation at the tournament. Marcel Haščák, who currently is a leader in the statistics of the of the Slovak National League shooters, will want to confirm in Poprad his shooting quality. He will be backed-up by experienced forward Michal Chovan. Patrik Koch, participant in last year's World Championships, will introduce himself in the defense lines, the Slovak net will be covered by the goalkeeper Andrej Košarišťan. The forward Branislav Rapáč acts in the team as an on-call substitute.

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The Selection led by the head coach Ivan Feneš will meet in Piešťany from February 2 to 8, where they will participate in the traditional Vlado Dzurilla Tournament. This tournament will be for our team the last test before the upcoming World Ice-hockey Championship of the first A Division which will take place in Spišská Nová Ves in April. Young Slovaks will gradually compete with juniors from Germany, Swiss and Belorussia on the ice of Piešťany Easton Arena. Also, two Steelers, the forward Roman Faith and defender Matej Jacko, were given an opportunity to prove themselves and fight for a final nomination to the home World Championship.

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During the first week in February the Slovak national team will meet in the Vlado Dzurilla Ice-hockey Stadium in Ružinov, and then it will take part in the Tournament of Four Countries in Germany. The players led by the coach Ján Lipianský will try to fight for the best placement against the teams from Germany, Denmark, and Swiss. Two forwards, Jakub Demek, Martin Tvrdoň and the defender Michal Kapičák will represent the colors of Košice in the tournament in Füssen, Germany.  In addition to the nominated players the Košice resident Marcel Šimurda will be one of the assistants of the head coach.

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The players led by the coach Roman Sýkora will also have representation responsibilities - they will meet on Monday, February 3 in the ice-hockey stadium in Trnava, from where they will move to Romanshorn, Swiss, where they will take part in the Tournament of Four Countries. Our juniors will face the home Swiss team in the opening match of the tournament, and they will also measure their strength with the players from Belorussia and Latvia.  Also, three Steelers will try to help the team to achieve the best possible result in the tournament.  The goalkeeper Patrik Jurčák, defender Jozef Viliam Kmec and forward Peter Repčík also received an invitation to the Slovak national team.

We keep fingers crossed for all our players and wish them a successful performance!

HC Košice Media Team (zek)