The Ice Hockey World Championship ended for the national team by being eliminated in the quarterfinals, despite its strength, we will always judge it as a failure. However, it can be different in a year.

We don’t know how it will turn out, but we promise you that it will be more fun. It will be played in the Czech Republic.

Failure brings with it backlash, and one this year will probably be especially nourishing.

Czech hockey player did not manage the most important match of the hockey tournament and ended up in the quarterfinals of the World Championship. Besides, in a country that is so crazy about hockey, the fact of somehow cannot be ignored.

Immediately after the final siren of the match against the United States, where the team practically could not get consistent pressure, fans (and even hockey club owners) turned into hockey coaches, as usual. They were clear about who was to blame, why the always and everywhere successful Finnish coach Kari Jalonen had to end up in a different position, how badly Martin Havlát did his job as general manager and how they themselves would put together a team that would surely do so. not returning home like this from Tampere in shame…

Of course, sometimes even hockey players turn up their noses at how thoroughly the Czechs can analyze the championship. But everyone should realize that it is very good. As long as similar discussions are on the agenda, it means the Czechs continue to love hockey despite their increasingly failing national team. And they’ll show you in a year…

The 2024 World Cup returns to the obsessed country after nine years.

At this time of the year, we will have the final battle at the O2 Prague arena ahead of us, the base group will also be played in Ostrava. Again, without Russia, even a hockey outsider would stand a chance, after a year Great Britain returned to the elite group, and even after twenty-two years, Poland also with the enthusiasm of thousands of incredible fans. It will just be a waste.

We do not know how the health of the Czech hockey players is. We don’t even know how their team will perform in the NHL. You can only guess ahead, but why not dream a little? It’s clear that the Czech team will be much stronger in a year. With a whole constellation of fighters from the NHL on the roster, he’ll be talking medals again.

Host world championships (especially hockey in the Czech Republic) are such a wonderful event for any athlete that coaches receive few apologies. There will be a fight for places in the team, of course everyone wants to play, regardless of injury. If the predictions for the start of next season in America are not completely overturned in reality, the Czechs will be able to count on a strong team. Unlike this year, the pivot will consist mostly of players from overseas.

By the looks of it, the battle for the Stanley Cup shouldn’t be about San Jose with Tomas Hertl, after a big contract expiration and a big generational change to come, maybe even Boston. David Pastrňák, the absolute best Czech hockey player and one of the best players in the entire NHL, could easily make his name in Prague.

The trainers (there has been speculation about the exchange of Kari Jalonen for Radim Rulík) will have no choice but to accept the reality of expectations of the sold-out O2 arenas, who want to see a strike on gold.

The Czechs won their last WC at home in 1985, a few years before the revolution and at the sports hall in Holešovice. Since then, the world championships have been held in the Czech Republic twice, in 2004 and 2015. Each time with the final at the O2 arena, that’s the best way to tell how fast time flies.

Just as the Czech team underwent a makeover, the country’s largest sports arena underwent an expensive renovation. Already during last season the gradual replacement of seats began, visitors to additional league games inevitably noticed the growing number of LED panels around the cubes on the ice to make the hockey show even better. And the comfort in the hall has also changed. Chances are that in a year you won’t be able to buy drinks at the O2 arena with money. The Czech national team’s home ground has also completed a “cashless match” test, where payments can only be made contactless to expedite service.

Although it seems relatively recent when you remember Jaromír Jágr’s phenomenal performance, which set up Finland’s elimination in the quarter-finals, a lot has changed in Czech hockey since the last world championships in the Czech Republic. Although Jaromír Jágr is still playing, he has not worn a national team jersey since Prague 2015. Slavia Prague are still the home team at the O2 Arena, Litvínov became the national champion and Vladimír Růžička became the final national team leader. The aforementioned Pastrňák just finished his first season in the NHL. But most importantly – we all still seriously think that we are part of top hockey.

The hockey players are going into the next home World Cup in hockey with great expectations from the rest of the nation, but definitely not as the biggest favourites. Just as the Czech players did not refuse the domestic championship, our star rivals would not refuse to participate in it either. When certain teams announce their nominations in less than a year, critics forget for a moment what they cheekily repeat every year: that the World Cup isn’t what it used to be.

The one in Prague will be different, it will be the best international hockey confrontation we have seen in recent years. The championship in the Czech Republic was announced, the exciting destination in the middle of Europe and the great reputation of the Czech hosts attracted a large number of fans from all over Europe and the NHL elite, who were so close to them.

Even Canada’s biggest stars, led by Sidney Crosby, will be able to meet regularly during tournaments in Prague’s famous bars, and will live for days even around the arena. With Poland’s progress, there was also the idea that Poland would play a base group in Ostrava (considering the location of hockey town in Poland, mainly centered around Katowice, makes sense), unlike in previous tournaments, Slovakia could also play in Prague.

But the organizers will announce all this soon.

As well as information about how and especially how much you can buy tickets. These will traditionally be sold in the fall, first in all-day packs. In 2015, Czech matches sold out in five hours, despite Sazka terminals collapsing across the country. It didn’t even get to the fans who frequented it, who had already lined up in front of the ticket booths for both arenas several hours earlier.

In the end, the World Championships in the Czech Republic in 2015 was attended by an incredible 741,690 spectators, which is a historical record. And although the Czechs haven’t even had time to start building a bigger arena in Brno, where they initially wanted to move from Ostrava to the next tournament, they will very realistically attempt to break their own current record a year from now.