Senior national team head coach Rich Chernomaz spent three days in Slovenia with the junior national team (U20). With the U20 Division II A world championships to be played next month in Miskolc it was a very important Four Nations Tournament for the team. The Hungarians faced three clubs that were all playing at a higher level word championships this year.
"We had to fight throughout all three games we played," said assistant coach Gergely Majoross. The French and the Italians will be playing in the Division I B level and the Slovenians will be even higher at the Division I A level come December.
The rival that the Hungarian team faced first was a strong French side. Richárd Tóth opened up the scoring in the first period but with five seconds left the French managed to put one in the net. In the second period the two teams exchanged goals with Áron Könczei scoring for the Hungarians, however, the French scored three unanswered goals and headed into the third period with a 5-2 lead. In the last period Team Hungary fought back to within one on a Krisztián Nagy short handed goal and an even strength László Ritó goal. France managed to take advantage of two mistakes and finished the game with a 7-4 win. Majoross said of the game "We did not play the smartest and they took advantage of our mistakes."
In the second game Hungary played the host team of Slovenia, the first period ended 1-1 with Ritó scoring the goal. The second period did not go as smoothly because of a 5+20 penalty which let the home team take the lead. Slovenia had a 4-1 lead before Hungary was able to score their second goal of the game which came off the stick of Tamás Sárpátki. The game was a lot closer than what the score indicated, though.
The last game of the tournament probably showed the best where the team is. "We played the late game the previous night and then the last day the match against Italy was the early game. Despite not getting the amount of rest we would have prefered we played great and had excellent goaltending," said Majoross about the game. Csanád Erdély found the back of the net for the only goal of the game, which was all that was needed.
When asked about the tournament itself Majoross said "What was great was that the team got string as the tournament went on, we were able to work on tactics and what to do on the power play and on the penalty kill."
Chernomaz added "We played our system and our goalies had a chance to gain some experience. In the end the difference between the other teams and us was the goaltending, where the other teams had good experienced keepers we had guys who were playing at this level for the first time." He continued on saying that overall he is very satisfied how the team played.
The players looked to have the same opinion of their performance as well. "I think everything went well for the team, we have developed a lot from last year as individual players and as a team as well," said Krisztián Nagy. "Everyone played hard and we did what was asked from us by the coaching staff, I think we did better than what we were expecting."
Photo: László Mudra