The Hungarian U20 team will play two exhibition games against the Austrian national team in St.Pölten, Austria, the second game will be followed by cutting the roster to the final travel squad. Rich Chernomaz talked to icehockey.hu before the team left.
““We felt that there are some guys that we didn't take to France in November that we would give a chance this time around, we felt that there might have been guys that were just in a rough patch and had a bad phase, or injuries, we will be cutting 6 players tomorrow to get to the final roster.” said Chernomaz about how the roster is coming to form, he also talked about the two upcoming exhibition games. “We will be playing Austria what are two levels ahead of us, we want to go out and play, and stick within our game plan, work on our special teams, they have to be working well for the world championships.”
The squad had a 100 minute ice session yesterday afternoon and this morning they had another 50 minute session before heading to Austria. Chernomaz had a simple answer when asked if this was enough time to get ready for Austria. “You never have enough ice time to work on every little details, the guys are down with the systems for the 5 on 5 now were are working on the special teams.”
Naturally the roster has some turnover from the previous year with a new batch young guys joining the veterans from last season. “The team is bigger, stronger skaters, some of the players are better fundamentally in the past year, the key to success is to understand that there is a right way to win and the wrong way to win. We do not to win by playing down to the level of the weaker teams.”
Rich Chernomaz was also asked about how have some of the players improved who have been playing with senior teams ‘It is great for their development that some of these guys have been playing up with senior players, they know that they can't show up they have to be their menatlly as well, be there and improve, they know that they have to be accountable to the older players and the coaches.”
Stats, schedule and all other information about the world championships can be found here.
Roster
Goalies(3): ARANY Gergely, DOBOS Kristóf (MAC Budapest), KISS Bence (DVTK)
Defensemen(9): LÁDAY Tamás, SZALLER Márk, VOKLA Roland (Fehérvár AV19) HERNER Olivér, HERSZÉNYI András, JÁSZAI Dávid, KOVÁCS Attila, STIPSICZ Bence (MAC Budapest), GARÁT Zsombor (Seacoast Prep, USA)
Forwards(17): BÖDÖK Bence, FELFÖLDI Phillip, TERBÓCS István (MAC Budapest) GÁSPÁR Máté, SÁGI Martin, (Black Wings Linz, Austria), KISS Patrick, MAZZAG Dániel, SZITA Donát, VARGA Balázs, VÍZI Dániel (Fehérvár AV19), SZABAD Kevin (Vienna Capitals, Austria), GALLÓ Vilmos (Linkőping, SHL), KISS Zsombor (HC Davos, Switzerland), ANTAL Norbert (Borlänge HF, Sweden), TANKA Lőrinc (Debrecen), KERESZTURY Erik (Düsseldorf EG, Germany), ERDÉLY Csanád (Sioux Falls, USHL)
Coaching Staff:
Head Coach:Rich Chernomaz
Assistants: Bence Svasznek, Bence Kiss Gary Clark
Schedule
Exhibition Games:
Hungary vs Austria: Tuesday December 8th, 16:30
Hungary vs Austria: Wednesday December 9th 13:00
World Championships
Hungary vs Korea: Sunday December 13th 16:30
Hungary vs Netherlands: Monday December 14th 13:00
Hungary vs Estonia: Wednesday December 16th 13:00
Hungary vs Croatia Friday December 18th 16:30
Hungary vs Lithuania Saturday December 19th 20:00