Recently, another two matches of our young Steelers took place in the Steel Arena. The players played against Poprad who is currently ranked second in the table. Despite having seven points less than Poprad, young Steelers gave a wonderful performance in close matches.

During the match on Thursday, Roman Faith was the first one to score at the beginning of the second period. Two minutes later, after Lukáš Vaculik's foul, the outnumbered opponents tied the score. The opponents managed to get the puck in front of our goaltender two more times. First time it happened in 10th minute of the third period and the second time in last seconds. The final score of the match was 1:3.

"We were more than an equal opponent during this match, it's a shame we conceded two goals. With the first one, we played short-handed, we switched too late and the opponents used the situation following the first shot. With the second one, Poprad played signal after face-off which we couldn't cover. It was a good game in which we were reaching out for points," commented the duel main coach Peter Holaza.

Despite an unpleasant score we should commend our players. They tried to reverse the score until the very end of the match. They didn't succeed also because of absence of the goaltender during last minutes of the third period. "Overall, there were more positives than negatives in today's match. It was more about defense and performance of goaltenders. The negative factors that deprived us of possibility to give hundred percent in the last minutes of the match without a goaltender were the unnecessary penalties," confirmed the coach of junior Steelers.

The duel on Friday started successfully for our players. In 5th minute Roman Faith, with assistances of Lukáš Vaculik and Adam Matej, overcame the goaltender of Poprad. However, Poprad managed to reverse the score by shooting two goals. The tying goal came at the end of first period and another one at the beginning of the second. Right after that, Patrik Frič tied the score, after passes from Patrik Barger and Tomáš Veteška. Poprad scored two more times during the second period. Despite the unpleasant development, juniors from Košice tried to alter the score. Even though they scored twice, our goaltender conceded four goals. The final result of the match was 4:8.

"In the second match it was the second period that was decisive when our opponent got into 2-goal lead. We prepared several good chances to score, but we didn't use them. On the contrary, the opponent was very effective during counter-attacks and deserved to win," evaluated Peter Holaza.

The score after the two periods was quite even. Why weren't the boys successful in the third one? "It is hard to say. Those were two different matches and different third periods. In the first

one, it was about one crucial situation. On the other hand, in the second match we tried to tie the score, but we couldn't cover the opponent's counter-attacks sufficiently. We knew that Poprad is strong with its full line-up. They have balanced team with offense dominating. Their forwards are very fast and good with a puck. We gave them too much space for maneuvering which cost us a good result, mainly in the second match," concluded Peter.

Overall, our juniors leave without a point. Another home game will be on 25 and 26 January against Nitra.

Formation of HC Košice (Round 15): Balogáč (Horváth) – Jobbágy, Markuš, Sirotňák, Palacko, Veteška, Juraško – Matej, Frič, Hrabčák – Eliaš, Faith, Pavlík – Barger, Vereš, Vaculik – Olbert, Soľár, Sedlák

Formation of HC Košice (Round 16): Horváth (Balogáč) – Jobbágy, Markuš, Sirotňák, Palacko, Veteška – Matej, Faith, Vaculik – Eliaš, Vereš, Pavlík – Barger, Frič, Zahuranec – Olbert, Soľár, Sedlák – Juraško