It is that time of year that all hockey fans wait for, when everyone grows out their playoff beard and hope that their team is the first one to win 16 games. I think that the hockey playoffs is the most grueling playoff system in North American team sport. The players put everything on the line for an enormous silver chalice that is better known as Lord Stanley’s Cup. The Stanley Cup playoffs are not only a big deal in the U.S. and Canada but also in other hockey nations such as Russia, Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic. For smaller nations the Olympics and the World Championships is almost on the same level since they only have a handful of players from their country in the League and they always have a chance of pulling off an upset and finishing on the podium at the two international events, Slovakia, Switzerland and Germany fall in the group. There is a group of countries where the Division I World Championships carry the most weight. This is Hungary, Slovenia, and Austria, these countries have never had a player play in the NHL or can count on one hand the number. For these countries winning the Div I championship means that they will qualify to play with the big dogs in 2013.
The 2012 Division I championships will be held in Slovenia and joining the host country will be Hungary, Austria, Great Britain, Japan and Ukraine, with the top two teams moving up. This tournament will run from April 15th through the 21st with Slovenia, Austria, Hungary and Ukraine having almost an equal chance of moving up, all four teams have played at the next level in recent years with Hungary playing in 2009. The interesting part about the Hungarian team is that they have only played at the top in 2009 after qualifying in 2008 in a thrilling fashion and just missing out last year in a hearbreaker. There has never been a Hungarian that has played in a game in the NHL. The closet they have ever been was Levente Szuper who was a goalie for the Calgary Flames sat on the bench for a couple of games since number one keeper Roman Turek was injured. There have been a total of four Hungarians drafted in the NHL, in 1990 the Minnesota North Stars picked Frank Kovács in the 4th round 71st overall. Kovács was actually born in Canada with Hungarian ancestors and would later gain Hungarian citizenship and play for the national team after playing a number of years in the minors. In 1999 the Edmonton Oilers picked Tamás Gröschl in the 9th round, supposedly the the Oiler scouts thought that Gröschl was Swedish since he was playing in Sweden at that time. When they found out he was Hungarian they decided to send him to the ECHL instead of the AHL. The following year Szuper was drafted in the 3rd round by the Flames. The latest but hopefully not the last was János Vas by the Dallas Stars in 2002, Vas like Szuper almost made it to the big show but could not get past the AHL.
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| Levente Szuper |
There have been a number of Hungarian players who just like Szuper and Vas have played in some of the top leagues throughout Europe. If you take a look at the current squad you have Zoltán Hetényi a goalie who is in the Finnish SM League, defenseman and team captain Dr. Viktor Szélig who plays in France, and István Bartalis who is János Vas’ team mate in the Swedish Allsvenskan. Most of the players that play in Hungary play for Alba Volán which actually plays in the Austrian League, which has actually help Hungarian hockey develop in the past couple of year. I would just like to mention one of the youngest players in the squad János Hári, Hári played a season of junior hockey in the prestigious QMJHL in Canada and is now playing for MODO in Sweden under the watchful eyes of hockey legends Ulf Samuelsson, Peter Forsberg and Markus Naslund and has a chance of being taken in the upcoming NHL draft.
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| János Hári |
It is interesting to see how Hungary has dealt with the turnover of talent that naturally happens on any team legends of the past such as Gábor Ócskay, Kristián Palkovics, Balázs Kangyal, Gergely Majoross, and Roger Holéczy have retired or moved on, but now there are young players coming up to join the veterans. Young guns such as Attila Orbán, Tamás Pozsgai, István Bartalis, János Hári and Bálint Magosi try to keep up with veterans such as András Horváth, Tamás Sille (who is 42!), Viktor Tokaji, Csaba Kovács, Balázs Ladányi, and Márton Vas.
I really believe that Hungary will qualify for the 2013 World Championships and will pull off a couple of upsets to stay in the top level for 2014, but before I get ahead of myself let us just enjoy this upcoming tournament and the first round of the NHL playoffs.
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