The Slovak hockey players lost in Friday’s semi-final match at the Olympic tournament in Milan against the favored Americans 2:6 and after four years they will play for bronze again. On Saturday at 8:40 p.m. challenge Finland. The USA will meet in the North American final on Sunday at 2:10 p.m. with Canada.
From the beginning, coach Vladimír Országh’s men faced pressure from the opponent, who created a two-goal lead in the first period thanks to Dylan Larkin and Tage Thompson. In the second half, the Americans broke the resistance of the Slovaks with two accurate shots in a span of 19 seconds. After the fourth conceded goal, Samuel Hlavaj was replaced in the goal by Stanislav Škorvánek. Jack Hughes made it 5-0 with his second goal of the match. In the third period, Juraj Slafkovský, for whom it was the fourth goal at the 2026 Olympics and the 11th overall at the Winter Olympics, and Pavol Regenda only corrected the result.
Despite the loss, the Slovaks still have a chance to take home an Olympic medal from Milan, their second in the era of independence. At the 2026 Olympics, they are defending their bronze from Beijing 2022, where, however, NHL stars did not start.
In the final, the two biggest favorites of the tournament and at the same time the two highest seeded teams after the preliminary stage will meet. Canada and the USA last met in the Olympic final in Vancouver 2010, where the home team triumphed 3-2 after extra time. The Canadians are fighting for their tenth anniversary Olympic title, the Americans for their third.
Hlas after the match (source: STVR):
Miloš Kelemen, striker of SR: “We didn’t play our game. We gave the Americans a lot of space. You can say that the goals were due to our stupidity, and that can’t happen in a game like this. We will definitely talk about it in the cabin. We have to forget about it, we have one more game to fix it. We have to be faster in everything and not give the opponent as much time as we did today.”
Pavol Regenda, author of the second goal of SR: “It was a tough match. I think that we started quite well, we had power plays in the beginning, but we didn’t score any goals. They then bounced back and it was a one-way match. We made stupid exclusions and players like them know how to use power plays. Against such an opponent, we cannot make such stupid fouls when we allow ourselves to be provoked. Now we have to prepare for tomorrow’s match. We are still in the top 4, we can still get bronze, we have to keep our heads up, tomorrow is a new day.”
Juraj Slafkovský, author of the first goal of SR: “We didn’t catch the beginning of the game, we had bad substitutions, we threw pucks where we shouldn’t have. We should have shot more in the power play. We have to look at where we made mistakes. Tomorrow is still a big game for us. We have to prepare for 110 percent, the medal is still in play. Of course, we are angry today, but we will wake up tomorrow, it’s a new day, we have to go into it with a smile on our faces.”
Samuel Hlavaj, goalkeeper of Slovakia:I don’t know what to say about that. Bad match from our side. About that much. We were scared of something, I don’t know what. But it was not what we were used to during the basic group and not even in the quarter-finals.”
Adam Ružička, striker of SR: “It was the biggest match of this tournament for us and I think we didn’t come prepared for it. The first 10 minutes we made mistakes, a lot of details that we told ourselves, they just weren’t there. We had a lot of suspensions and you can’t play like that against a team that has one of the best power forwards.”
Tomáš Tatar, captain of SR: “Unfortunately, we missed it today. We still have great motivation, we are playing for bronze. The Americans didn’t have to score goals at all, we gave it to them. We were giving them too much space, we were needlessly frustrated. We have to go back to our game, what we played before, which is to play more simply. You have to learn from mistakes, tomorrow is a very important match, we all have to realize that and give everything.”
Vladimír Országh, SR coach: “If we want to beat one of those top teams, our performance must be 100 percent. There must be good power plays, there must be good weakening and there must be discipline. And that was not the case today. The entire match was decided in the first two periods, although we scored goals after that, but they were already controlling it.”
