"Like a kid at Christmas"

After taking the weekend the national team was back on the ice Monday afternoon for the first  real practice of the world championship training camp with a couple of new faces joining the team on the ice.

The work week ended Friday afternoon and on Monday afternoon the 40 man roster was back on the ice in preparation for the world championships. Miklós Rajna was back on the ice after recovering from a smaller ankle injury, István Bartalis was also back after missing Thursday and Friday after splitting his elbow open. János Hári had joined the team after he won the Allsvenskan with his team Leksands, who arrived to Budapest Monday at noon and was already on the ice in the afternoon.
“I have not been on the ice in the past ten days so today I was pretty tired, however it looked like I was not the only one that was spent after practice so I don’t really feel I had missed out on anything.” said Jancsika Hári with his usual humor.
After the in-house tournament that the team had on the first week of camp, Rich Chernomaz opened the second week with a more traditional practice where he was really pushing the guys.
“Playing seven games in four days was very tiring so the rest during the weekend was very nice, it was a great opportunity to be with the family one last time before getting back to camp, we probably won't really be able to see them as we will be in camp for the next three weeks” said Dániel Kiss. “We were off for two and a half days but coach really sucked the oxygen out of us today, this was probably part of the plan. We know that the world championships will probably be like this as we will run into faster teams than us. This way he gets to see how we react to this kind of pace and how can we concentrate.”

As Dániel Kiss is a veteran of this year's camp, Frank Banham was hitting the ice for the first time on Monday as he was recovering from a routine knee surgery so clean everything up. “It was like being a kid at Christmas being back on the ice, it is never fun watching from the stands, it is being on of the guys and feeling part of the team. The knee feels great, I skated on it during the weekend, it actually feels better than before and I hope it stays like this. It was a tough practice today but we need this because the games will not be easy in Russia. I plan on going full strength but I will deiced if i need to hold back or go all out.”

Photo: László Mudra

 

ROSTER

Goalies (5): BÁLIZS Bence (MAC Budapest), KISS Bence (DVTK-Jegesmedvék), HETÉNYI Zoltán, RAJNA Miklós (Fehérvár AV19), VAY Ádám (Debreceni HK)

Defencemen (13): ORBÁN Attila, SZIRÁNYI Bence, VARGA Arnold, WEHRS Kevin (Fehérvár), KISS Dániel (UTE), GARÁT Zsombor, MESTYÁN István, POZSGAI Tamás, STIPSICZ Bence (MAC), DUDÁS Jesse, GŐZ Balázs, SAGERT Kalvin, (DVTK), VAS Márton (Fassa)

Forwards (22): BANHAM Frank, BARTALIS István, BENK András, KOVÁCS Csaba, KÓGER Dániel, NAGY Gergő, REISZ Áron, SARAUER Andrew, SÁRPÁTKI Tamás, SIKORCIN Ladislav (Fehérvár), CSÁNYI Karol (UTE), ERDÉLY Csanád (Sioux Falls), SOMOGYI Balázs (DVTK), GALLÓ Vilmos (Linköping), HÁRI János (Leksand), 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): v Austria
April 16th, Saturday, 16.30 (Vienna): @Austria
April 20th Wednesday, 19.00 (Budapest): v Slovenia
April 29th, Friday, 19.00 (Budapest): v Kazakhstan
April 30th, Saturday, 19.00 (Budapest): v Russia B

 

World Championships, Russia
Group B (St. Petersburg)

May 7th, Saturday, 12.15 (11.15): v Slovakia
May 8th, Sunday, 12.15 (11.15): v Canada
May 10th, Tuesday, 20.15 (19.15): v France
May 11th, Wednesday, 20.15 (19.15): v Finland
May 13th, Friday, 16.15 (15.15): v USA
May 14th, Saturday, 16.15 (15.15): v Belarus
May 16th, Monday, 20.15 (19.15): v Germany

(CET)