The management of the Slovak men's ice-hockey national team has decided that players currently playing in Russia's Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) won't play in the national team until the end of the ongoing season. "We've had a long discussion with players from the KHL in recent weeks. Due to their performances they could vie for final roster nominations in the World Championship. During the discussion, we came to the unanimous opinion that for the sake of calm preparations and for our team to concentrate 100 percent on the tournament it would be better to leave KHL players out of the nominations for the championship this season," reads the management's statement, as cited by hockeyslovakia.sk. Slovakia has thus joined countries such as the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden and Latvia, which will not call up hockey players based in Russia to their teams. Goalies Adam Húska and Patrik Rybár, defensemen Michal Čajkovský and Christian Jaroš and forwards Adam Liška, Michal Krištof and Tomáš Jurčo have played in the KHL this season. Július Hudáček also played in the KHL, but he has retired from the national team. Michal Krištof and Patrik Rybar are also under contract in the KHL for next season.
Source: TASR
