These midnight hockey games are destroying my sleep cycle.
Pavel Kubina didn’t pick up any points for the Czechs last night but he was +1 and played 15:15 for the Czechs who rolled four defensive pairings all night. That’s right- they played eight defensemen. In international hockey you can dress up to 20 players instead of 18 like the NHL. The game was probably the most entertaining of the tournament so far as Jaromir Jagr led the Czech squad to a 3-1 win over their Slovak rivals.
Slovakia used to be a hockey power and still has an impressive roster, but you can’t help but notice how old the team is. Marian Gaborik is their youngest forward at 28, and there just doesn’t seem to be as much talent in the pipeline compared to the Czech Republic whose roster includes young talent like David Krejci (23), Tomas Fleischmann (25), Milan Michalek (25), Roman Polak (23) and our very own Ondrej Pavelec (22). Pavelec may not see any action this tournament, but he’s getting invaluable experience on the international stage.
Today’s hockey schedule starts off with the United States versus Norway at 3 pm followed by Canada versus Switzerland at 7:30 and then Maxim Afinogenov and Russia and Slovakia at 11:55. You can keep tabs on how our guys are doing on our Olympics Central page.
