The Hungarian national team is playing with a full roster as the last two members of the team Csanád Erdély and János Vas made into camp, but of course with some hiccups on the way.
With János Héri being injured the roster was cut down to 30 players but the club season for Csanád Erdély and János Vas has come to an end as well and they have final joined the national team and hit the ice for the afternoon practice, however Csanád did manage to cut it close.
Csanád had to connect through Paris on his way back to Budapest but as usual traveling through the airport in Paris always has its problems, Csanád made his connecting flight however his equipment did not. Equipment manager Gábor Tornyi had to look what was left to get him hooked up with everything as he showed up 30 minutes before the scrimmage. For Jankó Vas things were somewhat smoother as he arrived back from Prague with his entire family. The national team will have a morning practice session on Thursday with a game against Kazakhstan and the Russian ‘B’ team on Friday and Saturday.
Gergely Majoross: This was the first chance that we had to look at Csanád and Jankó and to see how they are compared to the other guys. They will have a very short period of time as they try to catch up to everyone else and the work we have been doing the past weeks. They are both great players who will be able to pick up on what we have been doing, we know both players and we know what they are capable of doing and who they are competing against.
We can’t say that we are playing the same tactics or system that we have been playing in the past years, some of the basic concepts are different. We need to try new things, also we know that we can not play man to man defence in our own end of the ice based just on who we will be playing against.
Csanád Erdély: It is great to be back but I did feel the airplane travel as I was gasping for air. I will be in better shape tomorrow and I will have my own equipment as well. I had played on one line with Vilmos Galló at this past years U20 world championships and Balázs Sebők and me were on a line together in Krakow so I am familiar with both of them. I am ready to get into the swing of things and to play this last weekend of the Hockey Marathon.
János Vas: It is great to be here, and it is always fun to be with the national team, seeing old and new faces. Today I was playing on Sofron’s line but we will see what the coach has planned. I need to get used to the tactics but there doesn't look to be any changes since the Olympic qualifiers. I need to get some rest after these last couple of days and get ready for the two games.
Photo: László Mudra
ROSTER
Goalies (4): BÁLIZS Bence (MAC Budapest), HETÉNYI Zoltán, RAJNA Miklós (Fehérvár AV19), VAY Ádám (Debreceni HK)
Defencemen (10): ORBÁN Attila, SZIRÁNYI Bence, WEHRS Kevin (Fehérvár), KISS Dániel (UTE), GARÁT Zsombor, MESTYÁN István, STIPSICZ Bence (MAC), DUDÁS Jesse, SAGERT Kalvin, (DVTK), VAS Márton (Fassa)
Forwards (16): BANHAM Frank, BARTALIS István, BENK András, KOVÁCS Csaba, KÓGER Dániel, NAGY Gergő, SARAUER Andrew (Fehérvár) ERDÉLY Csanád (Sioux Falls), GALLÓ Vilmos (Linköping), KÖNCZEI Áron (Debrecen), MAGOSI Bálint (Briancon), NAGY Krisztián, TERBÓCS István (MAC), SEBŐK Balázs (KalPa), SOFRON István (Klagenfurt), VAS János (Slavia Praha)
SPRING SCHEDULE
Exhibition games
April 15th, Friday, 18.00 (Budapest): Hungary-Austria 4-0
April 16th, Saturday, 16.30 (Vienna): Austria-Hungary 1-3
April 20th Wednesday, 19.00 (Budapest): Hungary-Slovenia 0-3
April 29th, Friday, 19.00 (Budapest): v Kazakhstan
April 30th, Saturday, 19.00 (Budapest): v Russia B