“According to the results of the last tournaments, it is clear that the Czechs benefit the most from the exclusion of Russia,” writes the championat.com server in the analysis of the championship to the address of the bronze-winning Czech team, which celebrated silver last year and thus broke the 18-year wait for a medal in this category.
“But it must be added that the huge crisis in the education of players is beginning to be successfully overcome in this country, which is evident from the results at junior tournaments. The most important thing is that in recent years the national team has received high-quality coaches,” he continues.
“These Czechs were stubborn, selfless, but at the same time quite talented. They were able to outplay Canada to some extent, with whom they had been losing for so many years. Now they withstood her blunt pressure and played excellent counterattacks,” the server highlights the quarterfinal win over the overseas favorite.
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The author of the article, Rodion Vlasov, believes that the winning Americans in the tournament only confirmed that the USA is deservingly taking over the dominance in this category thanks to a better education system. According to him, Canadian players have worse individual skills compared to their neighbors, which should have been most evident in the unused pressure against the Czech Republic.
Qualitatively, they also have a problem in the goalkeeper position, which, according to the Russian server, was most evident also against the Czechs, when the undrafted Mathis Russo conceded “unnecessary goals”.
“Americans themselves cite the National Development Program (NTDP) as the main cause of their rise. Basically, they grow up on methods that could be described as the Soviet system. They bring the most talented under-17 and 18-year-old players from around the country to one place where they train together and specially selected coaches spend hours with them developing their individual skills,” adds championat.com, referring to the American system introduced after 1996 following a series of failures on the international stage.