The organizing committee of the European Ice Hockey Challenge has announced the tournaments for the 2014-2015 season.
For the international break of November 3rd-9th the hosts will be Slovenia, Hungary and Norway with Austria, Poland and Denmark host tournaments for the international break of February 2nd-8th.
The tournament that will be in November Hungary will be playing host to Italy, Poland and Korea, with the first to being opponents in at next seasons world championships. The site and the exact dates of the tournament will be determined at a later date.
In February Hungary will be traveling north to Poland like they did last year to face Kazakhstan and Ukraine along with the host country, all four teams will be playing in the division 1A level at next years world championships.
These two tournaments are great opportunities to try out young players with the national team, have recently nationalized players play for the first time and to start to implement systems and strategies that the coaching staff plans to use during the world championships.
In last November’s tournament held in Budapest, Peter Sevela and Tyler Metcalfe played in the Hungarian team jersey for the first time as nationalized players and young guns Benjámin Nemes, Attila Németh and Márk Miskolczi got to play with the senior team.
In Poland this past February head coach Rich Chernomaz had a chance to try Árpád Mihály and Tamás Gröschl on the blue line with a number of young players getting called up to the senior team including Balázs Sebők who ended up making the world championship squad.
Words: Szabolcs Závodszky
Photo: László Mudra