The biggest embarrassment in the history of youth hockey? The U20 national team entered the World Championship with a debacle against the Slovaks. What is the public reaction?

Fantastic opening, but then a huge ride by the opponent. The U20 national hockey team started the World Junior Championship on Tuesday and in the first match they played against neighbouring Slovakia. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it into the tournament. How is the public reacting?

Hockey fans were looking forward to December 26. The traditional Under-20 World Championship kicked off and of course the Czech Republic national team was there, opening the tournament with a federal derby against Slovakia.

The match in Gothenburg, Sweden, could not have started better. Already at 1:01 our juniors made a great counterattack, after which Dominik Rymon scored. No more goals were scored in the rest of the first period.

Czech fans would have liked to see no goal in the second period. Unfortunately, they had to stop wishing, as the Slovakian storm came. While the youngsters from the Czech Republic were collecting penalty minutes, the Slovaks were scoring goals. Petrovsky and Repcik turned the game around.

And in the third period Slovakia continued to score goals. They scored three more goals in five and a half minutes. Then they also missed a penalty shot, which Repčík missed. When Šapovaliv’s stick managed to reduce the score to 5:2, the neighbours struck another blow.

The Czech national junior team did not manage to win the game and lost 6:2. It was hard to imagine a worse start to the tournament.

The biggest embarrassment of the youth national team in history?

Considering the popularity of hockey in the Czech Republic, it is no wonder that many fans did not miss the start of the World Junior Championship. Unfortunately for the youngsters of the national team, as social networks were filled with criticism.

Some individuals took their anger at the result out on the Slovaks, whom they insulted in all sorts of vulgar ways. Many people, however, criticized the performance of our 20.

“Probably the biggest disgrace in the history of our youth hockey. I hope Augusta has resigned and maybe the masseur is finishing,” one of the comments on Twitter read.

“The Slovaks picked themselves up well after a stunted and passive opening period, a well-deserved win. They improved their movement and compactness, while in the Czech zone there were more and more free paths. Plus six stick fouls.”

The post by the official Czech Hockey account is quite telling, with negative comments also abounding.

On Wednesday, however, the national team can make up for the initial slap. They will face Norway.

Source: WJC, IIHF, Twitter