For the second year in a row the Hungarian U20 national team will be going for a gold medal at the world championships on home ice. A year ago the junior national team won the gold medal in Miskolc at the Division 2/A and being promoted to the Division 1/B which which will be in Dunaújváros.
Coaching the U20 squad for the second year in a row is Rich Chernomaz who is also the senior teams coach. Joining Chernomaz on his staff will be Tamás Siller, Zoltán Szilassy and goalie coach Gary Clark.
The backbone of this team has been together since they were 16 years old when Glen Williamson took over the Hungarian youth system. There are a handful of players that were on the last two U18 teams as well as last years U20 team that will be going for their fourth IIHF World Championship Gold.
Probably the most stable positions on this roster is in the net as Gergely Arany and Dániel Kornakker will be defending the Hungarian goal. Arany is one of the players who is going for his fourth gold and Kornakker made his senior debut last month with Fehérvár in the EBEL. Goalie coach Gary Clark had only positive comments about the two netminders, “both goalies have been in great for this season, they are both have great attitude, I think at the goalie position we are really solid”
The defensive unit is strong as well and going into camp all 10 blueliners had a real chance of making the team. “We have a great group of defencmen and I believe that they will play great, last year they performed well” said assistant coach Tamás Sille, “ we are lucky that we have competition among 10 players and not like in the past where there were only two or three adequate players.” The defensive unit has clear North American flavor with Chernomaz likeing the size amoung his defencemen, Tamás Láday is listed as 200cm and Gellért Hruby is 198cm. The other North American point is that Láday plays for Spokane of the WHL and Zsombor Garát is in Boston playing in the EHL. Except for Hruby who plays in the MOL league for Dunaújváros the rest of the players are playing in the youth league of the EBEL. Bence Stipsicz is with MAC and both Mark Szaller and Roland Vokla with Fehérvár. It is still to be seen but one of the forwards, with Richárd Tóth or Dániel Szabó could see minutes at defense.
According to assistant coach Zoltán Szilassy the key to a good tournament for the forwards is team speed, and by the looks of it they have it “we have forwards with great speed and are good shooters, speed is needed not only in attacking end but also in defending as well to get back on D, speed also equals quickness and we need to be quick and this team looks to have this.” The top line will probably be made up of Csanád Erdély, Péter Vincze and team captain Ferenc Kocsis as they been playing regularly on the second or third lines of Fehérvár in the EBEL. Chernomaz will also be expecting goal scoring from Erik Keresztury and Vilmos Galló who play in Germany and Sweden respectively. Like the defencemen the forwards rounded out by one MOL League player in Márk Egyed and the rest come from MAC Budapest and Fehérvár.
Chernomaz expects every game to be hard throughout the tournament but the two teams that will be the biggest challenge is Kazakhstan and France, but you can never underestimate Japan.
Goalies: ARANY Gergely (MAC Budapest), KORNAKKER Dánile (Fehérvár AV 19)
Defencemen: GARÁT Zsombor (Boston Bandits, EHL), HRUBY Gellért (DAB.Docler), LÁDAY Tamás (SpokaneChiefs, WHL), STIPSICZ Bence (MAC Budapest), SZALLER Márk (Fehérvár AV 19), VOKLA Roland (Fehérvár AV 19)
Forwards: ERDÉLY Csanád (Fehérvár AV 19), GALLÓ Vilmos (Linköping, SWE), HAMVAI Szilárd (Fehérvár AV 19), KERESZTURY Erik (Düsseldorf, GER), KOCSIS Ferenc (Fehérvár AV 19), MAZZAG Dániel (Fehérvár AV 19), REISZ Áron (Fehérvár AV 19), SCHMÁL Kristóf (MAC Budapest), SZABÓ Dániel (Fehérvár AV 19), SZABÓ Krisztián (Fehérvár AV 19), TERBÓCS István (MAC Budapest), TÓTH Richárd (MAC Budapest), VINCZE Péter (Fehérvár AV 19)
Coaching Staff:
Head Coach: Rich Chernomaz (Canada)
Assistant Coaches: Tamás Sille (Hungary), Zoltán Szilassy (Hungary), Gary Clark (Canada)
The schedule and results as well as a link to the live stream can be found on the IIHF website here