The national team was put through a long practice

Hungary defeated Poland in a shootout by the score of 2-1 on Wednesday in Miskolc, despite the win the coaching staff and the players were not happy with their performance. Assistant coach Gergely Majoross talked about what the staff was concentrating on at practice. “Regeneration is an important aspect but we have a enough time before the World Championships to rest later. Right now we are concentrating on the guys picking up the tactics and if the players are tired then they are tired. Today we worked on bring the puck out under pressure, this was something that we had problems with yesterday.”

Defencemen Bence Stipsicz scored the tieing goal in the game when he scored on the power play, we asked about how it felt to score his first national team goal. “ It felt great to score my first national team goal even though it took this long for it to happen. Lucky it went in and it feels great to score a goal for the national team.” Stipsicz also talked about what today’s practice was like. “We are still in the preparation process, yesterday we had problems bring out the puck from the defensive end so this was something that we worked on. We are physically where we need to be, we need to be able to excite when we are tired, during the World Championships we play five games in a span of seven days.”

National team forward András Benk has played over 130 games for the Hungarian national team, mostly on the wing however yesterday against Poland and against Sweden last week Jarmo Tolvanen played him at center. The veteran forward talked about this change and how he is able to play both positions. “Recently I have been playing center more often with UTE. This season with the national team I played center a lot. Luckley I am able to play both on the wing and at center even though I have been a winger for most of my career. As a winger you have to pay attention to different things compared to playing center, I think I am able to adjust to the position that I am playing at the time. I think that I played well during both games at the center position.”

Hungary will be back on the ice Friday at 18:30 for their second game against Poland in Miskolc.

Preparation Schedule
HUNGARY-Sweden 3-4
HUNGARY-Poland 2-1 SO
April 12th, HUNGARY-Poland (Miskolc) 18:30
April 17th, HUNGARY-Slovenia (Tüskecsarnok) 19:00
April 20th, HUNGARY-Italy (Coventry) 19:00 (GMT)
April 21st, HUNGARY-Great Britain (Milton Keynes) 14:00 (GMT)

Roster

Staff