Hungarian national team coach Rich Chernomaz made the final cuts and set the roster on Tuesday afternoon for EIHC tournament in Gdansk, Poland starting on Thursday and running through Saturday. The Hungarian national team will be taking on Belarus, Italy and the host nation of Poland in this four national tournament. The squad is made up of 3 goalies, 10 defensemen and 13 forwards, coming from four Hungarian clubs with four playing abroad. The team will have five players who will be pulling the Hungarian jersey on for the first time in their careers: Dósa, Reiter, Kocsis Sárpátki and Sebők.

In the cage goalkeeper coach Gary Clark will be working with Zoltán Hetényi, Miklós Rajna, and Peter Sevela. All three were among the goalies who played in the EIHC in Budapest in November along with Bence Bálizs who is out with a broken collarbone, probably each one will start one game each during the tournament.

On the blue line the team will have two new young players, Krisztián Dósa from MAC Budapest and Attila Reiter from SAPA Fehérvár AV19. Another interesting twist is that Tamás Gröschl from DAB.Docler will be playing defenseman instead of his usual spot as forward. Two players who are missing from the team but were in the squad in November is Tamás Pozsgai and Péter Hetényi, Frankfurt-based Márton Vas is also not with the team but will be in camp for the world championships.

There have been a number of changes at the forward positions for the Hungarian national team because of injuries and because of the club teams not releasing the players. Like on blue line the forwards will also have some new players, Tamás Sárpátki and Ferenc Kocsis from SAPA Fehérvár AV19 along with Balázs Sebők from Karpat from Finland will be making their debuts with the team. János Hári is not being let go by his team HIFK from Finland, for Gergő Nagy, Krisztián Nagy and Dániel Kóger it is not worth it to travel in from the U. S. for a weekend tournament. Ladislav Sikorcin is out for the season with a torn ACL, also picking up the injury bug is Krefeld’s winger István Sofron and Troja-Ljungby’s forward  István Bartalis but both of them should be healthy in the coming weeks.

The travelling squad

Goalies: Zoltán HETÉNYI (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Miklós RAJNA (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Peter SEVELA (Dab.Docler)
Defensmen: Krisztián DÓSA (MAC Budapest), Balázs GŐZ (Morzine-Avoriaz), Ádám HEGYI (MISKOLCI JJSE), Tamás GRÖSCHL (Dab.Docler), Adrián HÜFFNER (Dab.Docler), Attila ORBÁN (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Attila REITER (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Bence SZIRÁNYI (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Viktor TOKAJI (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Arnold VARGA (SAPA Fehérvár AV19)
Forwards: Zsolt AZARI (Dab.Docler), András BENK (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Nikandrosz GALANISZ (Dab.Docler), Ferenc KOCSIS (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Csaba KOVÁCS (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Balázs LADÁNYI (Dab.Docler), Bálint MAGOSI (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Árpád MIHÁLY (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Benjámin NEMES (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Attila NÉMETH (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Tamás SÁRPÁTKI (SAPA Fehérvár AV19), Balázs SEBŐK (Karpat Oulu), János VAS (Rouen HC)
Staff: HC Rich Chernomaz, Gary Clark, Gergely Majoross, Diego Scandella, Tamás Sille

Schedule

Thursday February 6th, 16:30: Belarus
Friday February 7th, 20:45: Poland
Saturday February 8th, 17:00: Italy

Text: Lea Darányi