Source: New York Post
MILAN — There were some bruised feelings a year ago, when the four nations selected unilaterally by the NHL in a Russia-less return to international best-on-best hockey did not include the likes of Czechia, which had won IIHF World Championship the previous summer. See Also Ilia Malinin backflips into men’s singles lead after huge Olympic short portion performance Ditto Slovakia, ditto Switzerland, ditto Germany, as what sort of tournament can call itself best-on-best without the young dynamo Juraj Slafkovsky or the old sage Roman Josi or let alone the surly yet electric Leon Draisaitl? No tournament, of course, and certainly not these Olympic Games, where 12 countries — again, sans Russia, still under righteous sanction for the invasion of Ukraine — compete for gold starting Wednesday when the Slovaks face the Finns. And for all the understandable attention on the United States, Canada, Sweden and Finland, this is not a case of four teams and then everyone else.
