“I appreciate it all the more because it was the first game for the national team in a long time and still away,” Langhamer told reporters. Just a week ago, he was catching the game for 3rd place against IFK Helsinki in the Finnish league for Ilves Tampere and after a 3:2 victory, he defended the bronze with the club before going to Oskarshamn in Sweden.
The last time he caught for the national team was on December 18 of last year, when he replaced the injured Šimon Hrubec in the 6th minute of the duel of the Swiss Hockey Games in Friborg and finished the match against Sweden (0:4). “Of course, Austria was a little worse than us today, but I still appreciate it. Every shot is dangerous,” he pointed out.
The players had to deal with the heat in the Steffl Arena on the ice. “I felt it a lot, especially after the first period, when Austria had enough. I cooled down with ice. From the second period, we played well from the back and were with them a lot of the time, so I didn’t have so much to do,” said Langhamer.
Last year in Tampere, the Czechs and Austria faltered on their way to bronze in the basic group and lost 1:2 after separate raids. It was the first defeat for them in the 20th duel between them. But today they clearly dominated. “I think it’s about speed, skill and vision. Maybe a little bit mentally too,” Langhamer commented on today’s difference.
He had to solve several chances of the Austrians and was glad that the team worked defensively at one hundred percent until the end. “We played a full sixty minutes. When we are leading by five or six goals, it’s more like a hesitation due to an injury than we let something go,” added Langhamer.
