The 2021 ice hockey world championship is held in Riga. (source: TASR)
The Slovak national ice hockey team has already travelled to Riga, where it will be attending the 2021 IIHF World Championship held between May 21 and June 6, 2021.
The median age of the 28-member Slovak team is 24.75 years, with the youngest players being 17 and 18.
“We have the youngest team since 1996, when we joined the A category of the world championship,” said Miroslav Šatan, general manager of the representation team, as quoted by the Sportnet.sk website.
Moreover, for nearly half of the players, it will be their first world championship. Ambitions are quite high, despite many new faces.
“We don’t have any big stars on our team, nor established NHL players, and many players will attend the world championship for the first time,” Šatan added, as quoted by Sportnet.sk. “But we still hope they’re ready and able to play.”
Matches and schedule
Slovakia will play at least seven matches as part of the preliminary round against its rivals in Group A. The matches will be played at the Olympic Sports Centre in Riga.
The first match takes place on Friday, May 21, against Belarus. Here is the complete schedule:
May 21, 2021 (Friday) at 19:15: Slovakia vs Belarus
May 23, 2021 (Sunday) at 11:15: Slovakia vs Great Britain
May 24, 2021 (Monday) at 15:15: Slovakia vs Russia
May 27, 2021 (Thursday) at 15:15: Slovakia vs Switzerland
May 29, 2021 (Saturday) at 19:15: Slovakia vs Denmark
May 30, 2021 (Sunday) at 19:15: Slovakia vs Sweden
Jun 1, 2021 (Tuesday) at 15:15: Slovakia vs the Czech Republic
