{"id":464446,"date":"2026-02-20T12:02:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T12:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/464446\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T12:02:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T12:02:40","slug":"slovakias-slafkovsky-nemec-and-dvorsky-are-living-out-a-childhood-olympic-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/464446\/","title":{"rendered":"Slovakia\u2019s Slafkovsk\u00fd, Nemec and Dvorsk\u00fd are living out a childhood Olympic dream"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILAN \u2014 Bolzano is a town in northern Italy, roughly a three-hour drive from the Olympic host city, nestled in the Dolomites Mountains, a scenic locale that attracts millions of tourists every year.<\/p>\n

It also attracts hockey players.<\/p>\n

Every spring, the World Selects Invitational hockey tournament is held in Bolzano, with some of the best youth hockey players in the world attending.<\/p>\n

In the spring of 2016, Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd had just turned 12, Dalibor Dvorsk\u00fd was 11, and the two of them traveled together from their native Slovakia to compete in Bolzano as part of the Slovakia Selects 12U hockey team. A year later, Slafkovsk\u00fd and his best friend, \u0160imon Nemec, were part of the Slovakia HMS Select team that traveled to Quebec City for the International Pee-Wee hockey tournament.<\/p>\n

The three of them quickly became the faces of Slovakia\u2019s hockey future.<\/p>\n

Slafkovsk\u00fd was the No. 1 pick by the Montreal Canadiens in the 2022 NHL draft, followed by Nemec going No. 2 to the New Jersey Devils, while Dvorsk\u00fd was the No. 10 pick by the St. Louis Blues in 2023.<\/p>\n

And while the future is bright for Slovakia, thanks in large part to these three young talents, it is Slovakia\u2019s present they are charged with in Milan.<\/p>\n

The trio of young stars will lead Slovakia into its semifinal matchup with the United States on Friday as massive underdogs, but they are realizing a dream that was formed long ago in the mountains of Northern Italy or the shores of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec.<\/p>\n

Slafkovsk\u00fd was the MVP of the 2022 Olympic men\u2019s hockey tournament in Beijing, and Nemec was also on that bronze-medal-winning Slovak team, the country\u2019s first Olympic medal in ice hockey.<\/p>\n

This is different, with NHL players involved, the best of the best, and Slovakia is still here in the semifinals, still being led by this trio of young stars with an opportunity to win a medal that would be so much more meaningful to them and their country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Olympics and also to play for your country is the first thing that you\u2019re dreaming about,\u201d Nemec said. \u201c(When) we were young, we were always watching the Slovak team on the TV, so that was the first dream. We did it in 2022, but now it\u2019s a different tournament with the best players in the world, and I think we\u2019re doing a pretty good job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Slafkovsk\u00fd is 21, Nemec turned 22 on Sunday and Dvorsk\u00fd is 20, three of the youngest players in the tournament, and still leading Slovakia to a guaranteed medal game regardless. So much of Slovakia\u2019s hopes for a brighter future have been heaped on these three, and on the biggest stage, they are delivering.<\/p>\n

Entering the semifinals, Slafkovsk\u00fd is tied for fifth in tournament scoring with seven points in four games, Dvorsk\u00fd is tied for eighth with six points and Nemec is playing on Slovakia\u2019s top defense pair and averaging close to 22 minutes of ice time per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like this is the next generation,\u201d said Washington Capitals defenseman Martin Feh\u00e9rv\u00e1ry. \u201cThey\u2019re going to be really good names in the NHL and, hopefully, really big stars. They\u2019re just growing up; each year, you can just see how Slafkovsk\u00fd and Nemec and Dvorsk\u00fd, they\u2019re getting better and better and better. They\u2019re becoming some of the top players in the tournament. It\u2019s just really cool to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the three young stars, the burden of expectations definitely falls heaviest on Slafkovsk\u00fd. He played in the men\u2019s world championships at 16, the Olympics at 17, drew comparisons to legend Jarom\u00edr J\u00e1gr<\/a> and generally was anointed Slovakia\u2019s next big hockey star at a very early age.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd and Dalibor Dvorsk\u00fd are part of Slovak hockey team on a dream run at these Olympics. (Gregory Shamus \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

He entered the Olympics with pressure to recapture the magic of Beijing when he scored seven goals in seven games, and he\u2019s met every expectation so far, and then some.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou all can see it, right? He has really grown in every aspect, and he\u2019s showing it every game,\u201d Dvorsk\u00fd said. \u201cThe pressure on him is probably the biggest on the team since he\u2019s doing great in Montreal and all the stuff around him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s handling it extremely well, and he\u2019s playing awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Slafkovsk\u00fd, the fact that he is having this success with two longtime friends, people he has known since childhood, is something he will fully appreciate another time. There\u2019s no time to get nostalgic at the Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure, we were dreaming about it when we were small that one day we\u2019re going to play for Slovakia and we want to achieve things,\u201d he said. \u201cSo far, it\u2019s happening, so I\u2019m just enjoying it. Maybe when we\u2019re going to have a beer when we\u2019re 45 and retired, we\u2019re going to look back and just laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, enjoy moments like this while it\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a lot to enjoy for Slovakia right now, and it\u2019s not limited to the trio of young stars. Slovakia is a team in every sense of the word, and to define this team as the product of the play of three players would be a great disservice.<\/p>\n

No matter what happens in the next two games, Slovak hockey has announced that it will be a player on the big stage in the years to come, and that hope is largely derived from these three young stars, who have all dreamt of this happening since they hit puberty.<\/p>\n

They shared that dream together, and they are now living it together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty cool,\u201d Nemec said, \u201cto play with your best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 Bolzano is a town in northern Italy, roughly a three-hour drive from the Olympic host city,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[462],"tags":[5,54125,4,465,466,2602],"class_list":{"0":"post-464446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl-draft","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-nhl-draft","12":"tag-nhl-entry-draft","13":"tag-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116102860454667766","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464446","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=464446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}