Hungarian national team coach Rich Chernomaz has announced his training camp roster for the upcoming Division 1/A World Championships to be held in Krakow, Poland.
As usual head coach Chernomaz had a couple of tricks up his sleeve when he announced his roster, the group is made up of three goalies eleven defencemen and twenty two forwards. The surprises are that Zoltán Hetényi made it as a goalie after only playing ten minutes all season because of serious health issues, meanwhile last years back up goalie Peter Sevela did not make the roster. Among the skaters defencemen Adrián Hüffner and Árpád Mihály did not make it on to the training camp roster.
Players have to report to camp on the afternoon of Friday April 3rd, and the final roster will be announced after the exhibition game against Slovenia.
From the start of the season it was know that Canadian born with Hungarian roots Tyler Metcalfe would be in the running for a final roster spot, but what was not know was that fellow Canadians Andrew Sarauer and Frank Banham would have a chance as well, Banham making the roster was somewhat of a surprise considering his age of 39.
Since Chernomaz has signed a three year contract extension he has been preaching about how the average age needs to be lower, and he has done so. There are six players that are 20 or younger, lead by the “veteran” of the group is Krisztián Nagy who will be going for his third world championships. The rest of the diaper dandies are Balázs Sebők, Attila Reiter, Csanád Erdély, Tamás Sárpátki, and Péter Vincze.
One problem that the coaching staff will face is that a couple of players might not be able to make it to the world championships since their club season or playoffs will still be in full swing. Gergő Nagy can still make the playoffs with the K-Wings or get called up to the AHL playoffs, János Vas will be fighting relegation in the Czech Extraliga and Márton Vas could still be in battle for the DEL2 title.
Five Hungarian teams are providing players to the roster, Fehérvár with 18, Miskolc with 6, DAB.Docler with 3, with Debrecen and UTE with 1 each.
One thing that looks to remain unchanged is the coaching staff that will be helping Rich Chernomaz, Tamás Sille, Gergely Majoross, Diego Scandella and Gary Clark will back on the coaching staff.
The Hungarian Squad
Goalies (3): BÁLIZS Bence (Miskolci Jegesmedvék) HETÉNYI Zoltán RAJNA Miklós (Fehérvár AV19)
Defensmen (11): KISS Dániel (Újpest) ORBÁN Attila, REITER Attila, SZIRÁNYI Bence, TOKAJI Viktor, VARGA Arnold (Fehérvár AV19), GRÖSCHL Tamás, POZSGAI Tamás, MESTYÁN Tamás (Dab.Docler), GŐZ Balázs (Miskolci Jegesmedvék), VAS Márton (Löwen Frankfurt, DEL2)
Forwards (22): AZARI Zsolt (Dab.Docler), BANHAM Frank, BARTALIS István, BENK András, EREDÉLY Csanád, KOVÁCS Csaba, KÓGER Dániel, MAGOSI Bálint, SÁRPÁTKI Tamás, SARAUER Andrew, SIKORCIN Ladislav, VINCZE Péter, (Fehérvár AV19), HAJÓS Roland, METCALFE Tyler, NAGY Krisztián, TÓTH Adrián (Miskolci Jegesmedvék), BERTA Ákos (Debreceni HK), SEBŐK Balázs (Hokki, FIN2), SOFRON István (Krefeld Pinguine, GER), VAS János (Slavia Praha, CZE) NAGY Gergő (Kalamazoo Wings, ECHL) HÁRI János (MODO, SWE)
Coaching Staff
Head Coach: Rich Chernomaz
Assistant Coaches: Gergely Majoross, Tamás Sille, Diego Scandella
Goalie Coach: Gary Clark
Exhibition game scheduale
Wednesday April 8
18:00 Austria-Hungary (in Vienna)
Friday April 10
19:00 Hungary-Austria (at the Tüskecsarnok, Budapest)
Sunday April 12
17:00 Hungary Slovenia (at the Tüskecsarnok, Budapest)
World Championships Schedule
Sunday April 19, 13:00: Hungary-Japan
Monday April 20, 13:00: Kazakhstan-Hungary
Wednesday April 22, 16:30 Italy-Hungary
Thursday April 23, 16:30: Ukraine-Hungary
Saturday April 25, 20:00: Hungary-Poland
Photo: László Mudra