Slovenia — not Slovakia — qualified today for the men’s hockey tournament at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Little Slovenia has produced one noteworthy hockey player in its history, but he’s a doozy — Anze Kopitar of the Stanley Cup winning Los Angeles Kings. So, add Kopitar to the galaxy of stars expected to shine in Sochi whenever the NHL and NHLPA, IIHF and IOC get around to sorting out the logistics of NHL participation at the Games.
Which they almost certainly will.
At any rate, here’s the piece from the IIHF website on Slovenia’s upset over Denmark on Friday, sending it to the Olympic Games for the first time.
And here are a couple of pieces I did back in 2005, when Slovenia qualified for the IIHF men’s World Hockey Championship in Innsbruck and Vienna, Austria, their centrepiece player being a 17-year-old, as yet undrafted Anze Kopitar.
Mon May 2 2005
INNSBRUCK — The future of Slovenian hockey made his
world hockey championship debut on Sunday and played about as well
as a 17-year-old could under the circumstances.
Which were none too favourable considering Slovenia, probably the
weakest team in the 16-team tournament, was drubbed 7-0 by a strong
Team U.S.A. lineup. And the score flattered the Slovenians, who were
outshot 40-16.
Never mind. Centre *Anze Kopitar*, touted by many as a high
first-round choice in the next National Hockey League entry draft,
had a fine time.
“The impressions are nice,” Kopitar said. “Playing against the
U.S. was really a good experience for everybody, I think. We didn’t
play so bad. We did make a couple of mistakes and they scored the
goals, but it wasn’t so bad. Hopefully, we’re going to do a little
bit better against Canada.”
Not likely, actually, but Kopitar’s a success merely by being here.
His presence attracted a sprinkling of NHL scouts, not to mention
player agent Don Meehan who has added Kopitar to his stable of
clients. It’s the third world championship appearance for Kopitar
this year, who also played for his country’s under-18 and national
junior teams this year.
As is often the case with players from so-called emerging hockey
nations, Kopitar has taken his developing game to Sweden, where he
played for Sodertalje’s under-20 team this season.
He led the Swedish junior league in scoring and has risen to first
among European players on the NHL’s rankings of draft-eligible
players.
Kopitar would become the second Slovenian player to be drafted by
an NHL club. Right-winger Edo Terglav, his world championship
teammate, was taken 249th overall by the Buffalo Sabres in the 1998
draft.
Needless to say, it’s a heady time for the six-foot-three,
190-pound forward, who was comfortable speaking English and facing
the international media.
On reflection, Kopitar acknowledged the challenge for him and his
teammates might be even more daunting against Canada than it was
against the U.S.
“By the names they may be an even stronger team (than the U.S.),
but we have to go into the game like normal,” Kopitar said. “We
can’t be scared of anybody.
“I think it’s an important game to play all the NHL stars. It’s
going to be a fun experience for everybody.”
The Slovenian fans certainly had fun on Sunday, cheering their team
on from start to finish, regardless of the lopsided score. Was he a
popular figure in his country, hot NHL prospect that he is?
“Not so popular. Hockey is big now. We’re in the elite division and
these days it’s really popular. But maybe football is more popular
or basketball or (team) handball.”
On Sunday, Kopitar made no glaring errors, nor did he do anything
particularly flashy. He appeared to be playing to avoid making a
mistake, which is understandable in a ‘boy-against-the-men’
situation.
He hopes to make some kind of mark before the tournament is over.
Next up: Slovenia: ‘Emerging hockey nation’ should be a free
space on Canada’s bingo card at world championship
Edmonton Journal
Mon May 2 2005
INNSBRUCK, Austria — First Latvia, then Slovenia, stutter
steps in Canada’s quest for a third straight men’s world hockey
championship.
Having disposed of Latvia, the hardest-working team in
international hockey, Team Canada now faces Slovenia, a country
famous for often being confused with Slovakia.
Not on the ice, though. Slovakia is one of the world’s top six
hockey powers; Slovenia is a tourist at the elite hockey level,
making just its second trip ever to the world championship. It
qualified for the big show after winning the International Ice
Hockey Federation’s B pool championship last year.
On the world map, Slovenia is wedged between northern Italy,
Austria, Hungary and Croatia; on the hockey map it is politely
referred to as an emerging nation.
Still, for a nation of two million souls, fewer than 900 of whom
play the game at any one of a total of six ice rinks, it’s an
achievement to be here. And there is hope for the future in the
person of *Anze Kopitar*, a 17-year-old centre who is touted as a high
first-round choice whenever the National Hockey League holds its
entry draft.
Their task on Tuesday, though, is to take on two-time defending
champion Canada, and when a teenager is your most skilled player,
that doesn’t say much for your team in the here and now. Latvia was
a worthy, if undermatched opponent for Canada. Slovenia is out of
its league.
“That always makes it difficult because if you win, you were
supposed to and if anything close happens, well then it wasn’t
supposed to happen,” said Team Canada head coach Marc Habscheid.
“That’s hockey in Canada, our players understand the expectations
that we have at home and that other teams love playing Canada. It’s
an opportunity to create an upset.”
It will be an upset if Slovenia comes within five or six goals of
Canada, but weird things happen in international hockey, as
Habscheid could attest.
He played for Team Canada at the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary, a
club that defeated Poland 1-0 on a goal he scored. The Poles rang a
shot off the crossbar late in the game, as well, narrowly averting a
catastrophe, not merely an upset.
Canada needn’t worry about a stunning upset this time. Slovenia’s
7-0 loss to Team U.S.A. on Sunday was even more one-sided than the
score suggests.
“I think it’s kind of nice that you have a lot of games before we
have a do-or-die game,” said Team Canada goalie Martin Brodeur, who
had a notion Slovenia was somewhere nearby, even if he wasn’t sure
precisely where.
“It’s not far from here, I know it’s not far,” said Brodeur, who
nonetheless got a request for tickets from a contact in that
country.
Tracy Sator, the wife of ex-New York Rangers coach Ted Sator,
called him for tickets to Canada’s game against Slovenia. She used
to be Brodeur’s marketing agent in New Jersey but moved with Ted,
who runs a hockey program in Slovenia.
Emerging nations need volunteers from hockey’s first world to help
them get up and skating, and Habscheid is a firm believer hockey’s
so-called weak sisters should get their chances to compete at the
worlds.
“Yeah, I do and the reason is it’s good for the game,” said
Habscheid, who visited places like East Berlin in then-East Germany
and Warsaw during his two-year stint with Canada’s national team in
the late 1980s. “We can see the excitement.
“Their fans come and they’re excited. I think the way teams improve
is when they know where the next level is.”
For Slovenia, Canada is not the next level, it’s galaxies away, but
the Canadians can’t approach the game with that mindset, Habscheid
noted.
“The big thing with our players and with Canadians is we always
respect our opponents and the people we’re playing against. Having
said that, we know that hopefully, we should win this game. We want
to encourage good habits. We want to encourage the type of hockey we
need to play down the road.”
Avoiding the pitfall of bad habits was on Team U.S.A. captain Mike
Modano’s mind after his team’s 7-0 victory on Sunday.
“It seemed like there was a lot of open ice, a lot of things you
could do with the puck,” Modano said. “There was a lot of time to
make plays.”
The Americans took advantage. Mike Knuble scored the first of his
two goals just 30 seconds into the drubbing. Adam Hall, Mark
Parrish, Jeff Halpern, Brian Gionta and Yan Stastny also scored for
the United States, which led 5-0 after two periods. It might have
been much worse.
“You get a little too cute, try to get everybody involved in the
scoring instead of just playing the game, try to get it over with,”
Modano said. “The idea is don’t so much play the score, play the
game, keep it honest and straightforward.”
Slovenia has no choice but to keep it simple. That’s the way it is
when you’re learning. You take baby steps, at first.
