{"id":457756,"date":"2026-02-14T11:28:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T11:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/457756\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T11:28:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T11:28:14","slug":"juraj-slafkovsky-has-resurrected-slovak-hockey-but-is-success-sustainable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/457756\/","title":{"rendered":"Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd has resurrected Slovak hockey, but is success sustainable?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

MILAN \u2014 Jaroslav Hal\u00e1k was fighting back tears in the mixed zone, and just like it had been on the ice, it was a losing battle.<\/p>\n

Slovakia \u2014 the proud hockey nation of Peter \u0160\u0165astn\u00fd, of Peter Bondra, of Pavol Demitra, of Mari\u00e1n Hossa, of Zdeno Ch\u00e1ra, of \u017digmund P\u00e1lffy \u2014 had just lost 3-1 to Slovenia in the group stage of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, its third game of the tournament and its third humbling defeat. And it wasn\u2019t even as close as the score indicated.<\/p>\n

Losing to the United States and Russia was one thing, but losing to Slovenia, a tiny nation with just one NHL player on the roster, was almost unfathomable.<\/p>\n

And deep in his heart, Hal\u00e1k knew it was only going to get worse for his beloved homeland.<\/p>\n

\u201cTime is catching up with everybody,\u201d he said. \u201cYou look at our roster four years ago (in Vancouver), and we had really good hockey players in their primes. It\u2019s hard to replace them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, Hal\u00e1k paused. Exhaled sharply. Tried to compose himself before speaking a truth that shook him to his core.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody\u2019s coming,\u201d he said softly. \u201cWe have nobody young coming up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slovakia finished ninth in the World Championship later that year. Ninth in 2015 and 2016, too. They were 14th in 2017. Then 11th in the 2018 Olympics. Ninth again at Worlds in 2018 and 2019, then eighth, then eighth, then ninth again.<\/p>\n

The youth hockey scene was in shambles. There was infighting in the national hockey federation. The best young players were fleeing to Sweden and Finland, where ice and opportunity were plentiful. There weren\u2019t enough rinks. There wasn\u2019t enough money. There wasn\u2019t enough talent.<\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t enough hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t produce a lot of players,\u201d said Michal Handzu\u0161, another member of that 2014 Olympic team. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a youth program like everyone has in this modern era of hockey. It felt that (dire) at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then along came Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd.<\/p>\n

Slafkovsk\u00fd arrived on the hockey scene at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, when he scored seven goals in seven games to lead Slovakia to a shocking bronze medal, its first of any color since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992. That performance rocketed the hulking winger up draft charts, and the 2022 draft proved to be a watershed moment for Slovak hockey \u2014 Slafkovsk\u00fd went No. 1 overall to the Montreal Canadiens, with countryman \u0160imon Nemec going second to the New Jersey Devils. Montreal took another Slovak, Filip Me\u0161\u00e1r, at No. 26. Adam S\u00fdkora went 63rd overall to the New York Rangers. There had been just one Slovak player taken in 2021, and he went 128th. Two were taken in 2020. One in 2019.<\/p>\n

A year after the Slafkovsk\u00fd draft, eight more Slovaks were drafted \u2014 one more than the rival Czech Republic had \u2014 including two more first-rounders, Dalibor Dvorsk\u00fd and Samuel Honzek, and three more second-rounders, Adam Gajan, Martin \u0160trb\u00e1k and Martin Misiak.<\/p>\n

A few years later, Slafkovsk\u00fd is the face of Slovak hockey and a star in the making. He had two goals and an assist in an opening upset of Finland on Wednesday. On Friday, Slafkovsk\u00fd followed that up with an assist in Slovakia\u2019s 3-2 win over a surprisingly competitive Italian team.<\/p>\n

The question is: Is Slovak hockey back? Or is this a fluke, a once-in-a-lifetime group of young stars?<\/p>\n

The answer is, well, complicated.<\/p>\n

Handzu\u0161 is the director of the youth program in his hometown of Bansk\u00e1. He was part of Craig Ramsay\u2019s coaching staff that helped put Slovakia back on the hockey map, but resigned in protest when the federation continued to allow its players to play in the KHL after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n

As a leader in the national federation, Handzu\u0161 helped usher in this exciting new generation of Slovak players. As a leader at the grassroots level, he\u2019s learned firsthand just how difficult it will be to create another.<\/p>\n

There are 400 players in the Bansk\u00e1 program between the ages of 5 and 20. More want in. But there are only two ice sheets in town, and they\u2019re already well past capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Finland around 2010, they said, \u2018We need to build more rinks and have more players,\u2019\u201d Handzu\u0161 said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have that. We are a little bit poorer country than Finland, so it\u2019s tough to build the ice rinks. And in this era where everything got really expensive, I don\u2019t see us building more ice rinks. We need to work with what we have and be really efficient within the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Handzu\u0161 uses the word \u201cefficient\u201d a lot. That\u2019s the key, he says. There are other towns in Slovakia that don\u2019t have enough kids to fill their ice sheets. You can\u2019t force people to move to other towns, but you can do a better job of building up the programs in those areas so that what little ice the country does have isn\u2019t wasted.<\/p>\n

Miro \u0160atan, the former NHL star who has been the head of the Slovak Ice Hockey Federation since 2019, has his detractors. There are always rumblings of nepotism<\/a>, of squandered resources and a failure to keep homegrown talent. But there has been progress, too. Slovak coaches have been dispatched to Finland to study how the similarly sized country (both have fewer than 6 million people) has continued to have two or three dozen players in the NHL every year, and has largely kept pace with mighty Sweden, Canada and the United States year after year. They\u2019ve brought Finnish-style coaching methods and organizational structures back to Slovakia.<\/p>\n

Slafkovsk\u00fd and Co. are, of course, a source of enormous pride in Slovakia. The dirty little secret, however, is that they\u2019re not really a product of the Slovak system. When Slafkovsk\u00fd was 12 years old, a group of parents, including Slafkovsk\u00fd\u2019s father, created their own team outside of the Slovak system that essentially barnstormed across North America. Of the 14 Slovaks drafted in 2022 and 2023, eight were on that team.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Slovakia pulled off an upset over Finland to open its Olympic tournament on Wednesday. (Andy Cheung \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

They were the exception, not the rule. And sure enough, in 2024, just one Slovak \u2014 Miroslav \u0160atan Jr., in the seventh round \u2014 was drafted. This past year, just three were taken, the same number as Belarus.<\/p>\n

\u201cSlovakia as a whole has done a better job with young players, but it\u2019s really been on the parents,\u201d said Dvorsk\u00fd, who\u2019s in his first season with the St. Louis Blues and is on the 2026 Olympic team in Milan. \u201cIt really is about the parents. They sacrifice a lot for us to be drafted high, so that helps. I don\u2019t know if any one thing has changed back home. It\u2019s getting better, for sure. But there\u2019s still a lot of work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bronze medal in Beijing, even without NHL players participating, was another seminal moment for Slovakia. Young players all know the legendary names that starred for Slovakia in the 1990s and 2000s, but Slafkovsk\u00fd and his cohort were small children when Demitra captained his country to a solid fifth-place finish in Turin, and when Chara captained them all the way to the bronze medal game, where they lost a heartbreaker to Finland.<\/p>\n

Even the Sochi disaster is ancient history to these guys.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really remember anything about it,\u201d said Honzek, who has cracked the Calgary Flames roster this season. \u201cBut when I look at it now, it\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when Slovakia gathered its top players over the summer ahead of the Olympics, it was those veterans from the Beijing team \u2014 not the Hall of Famers of years past \u2014 who left the youngsters in awe. After all, they were bronze medalists. At the Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were guys I never met, I just watched when we won the bronze in Beijing,\u201d Honzek said. \u201cIt was a pretty cool experience to be in the same room as them and think, \u2018In a couple months, I might be playing with them on the same team.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Honzek said that back in December, before the Slovak roster was even announced. But he said the rest of the hockey world was sure to underestimate them, and that, \u201cWe could be sneaky good.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the Finland win, they won\u2019t be sneaking up on anyone. Slafkovsk\u00fd was dominant, goaltender Samuel Hlavaj, who plays for the AHL\u2019s Iowa Wild, was brilliant. And the rest of the team played smart, savvy, opportunistic hockey \u2014 beating Finland at its own game. It was a raucous atmosphere to open the Olympics, as Slovak fans flocked to Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena in droves, chanting and waving flags and cheering themselves hoarse, even drowning out the Finnish fans.<\/p>\n

Slafkovsk\u00fd soaked it all in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wonderful,\u201d he said. \u201cI had no idea this many fans would come. I\u2019m just happy that they all came. They were cheering, and it\u2019s nice to hear some cheers in the Slovak language.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next time Slovakia gathers its best players, it\u2019ll be Slafkovsk\u00fd and Dvorsk\u00fd and Honzek who leave the next generation slack-jawed and star-struck. The true hope of Slovak hockey isn\u2019t Slafkovsk\u00fd, it\u2019s what he can mean, what he can inspire. Because grassroots organizing and fundraising are critical to beefing up and improving the youth hockey programs in Slovakia.<\/p>\n

But international success is rocket fuel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen your national team has some winning, then hockey gets popular and then more kids are going to play,\u201d Handzu\u0161 said. \u201cIt\u2019s huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dvorsk\u00fd was 8 years old when Hal\u00e1k and the Slovaks reached their nadir in Sochi. But unlike some of his contemporaries, he\u2019s something of a Slovak hockey historian, poring through grainy YouTube videos of all those great names of years past. He knows how much they meant to past generations of Slovaks, and he can only imagine what it would be like to mean that much to future generations of Slovaks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a dream, for sure, to get to that level where they were,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re working for.\u201d<\/p>\n

It won\u2019t happen overnight. The changes that Handzu\u0161 is making at the youth level, the application of those lessons learned by coaches on those scouting trips in Finland, the slow grind of cleaning up the federation at the national level \u2014 these will take years, not one fortnight.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot do it in a year, or two, or even four,\u201d Handzu\u0161 said. \u201cDevelopment \u2014 if you start making changes, it takes years. Because if you start developing and start changing the methodology of practices and you\u2019re working with a 6-year-old, it\u2019s 12 years before he\u2019s 18. You can change a lot of stuff for the older ages, but you have to be patient. \u2026 It\u2019s important for Slovakia hockey to see that we can do it, that we can have high draft picks. But now, even more important, is to be consistent and produce players like that consistently. It\u2019s tougher for us, but we can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Americans have a population of 330 million. When it comes to finding 20 elite players for the national team, the sheer mathematical advantage over tiny Slovakia is massive. One great youth team \u2014 forged and developed largely outside the Slovak system \u2014 can\u2019t change a country\u2019s fortunes on its own.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s a start. Twelve years after hitting rock bottom in Sochi, Slovakia is on the rise.<\/p>\n

Somebody was coming, after all. And on the world\u2019s grandest sporting stage, they\u2019ve finally arrived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics. MILAN \u2014 Jaroslav Hal\u00e1k was fighting back tears…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[377],"tags":[26,96,5,54125,21,4,2602,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-457756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-calgary-flames","9":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","12":"tag-montreal-canadiens","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-olympics","15":"tag-st-louis-blues"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116068752735516483","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}