Until the Olympic men’s hockey tournament began two weeks ago in Beijing, the name Juraj Slafkovsky probably wasn’t familiar to most Canadians.
The 17-year-old left winger for Slovakia soon became the talk of the tournament when he scored seven of his team’s 20 goals to win the scoring title and lead his country to its first Olympic hockey medal.
Touted as a potential top-five pick in this year’s NHL draft, Slafkovsky scored two goals in Slovakia’s 4-0 win over Sweden in the bronze medal game Saturday, while his good friend in Canada, Prince George Cougars defenceman Viliam Kmec, was sound asleep resting up for the Cougars game that night against the Kelowna Rockets.
Kmec and Slafkovsky have known each other since they were preschoolers growing up in Kosice, Slovakia. They played on the same HC Kosice teams until Slafkovsky left to play in Czechnia in 2018.
“We re friends from when we were younger, so I know him well, and I’m really happy for him and I hope he’ll go top-three in the draft,” said the 18-year-old Kmec. “He has real good shooting sense, he’s a goalscorer, but he can also create plays. He’s really big (six-foot-four, 218 pounds) and he’s really playing good now.
“I think we were the two guys who were playing in the higher category when we were younger and he always was better than the other guys. That started when we were 10 or 12. It’s incredible how he can compete with all those big guys and men and he still is one of the best out there, if not the best.”
Like the rest of his country and its 5.5 million people, Kmec was elated with the bronze-medal win, knowing what it would do to raise their spirits.
“Everyone is happy we won the bronze medal, it’s a huge win for our country,” said Kmec. “It’s just incredible how the guys played and I’m so happy that they did it. Everyone was watching, everyone was supporting the team and everyone is celebrating in Slovakia.
“It’s a really huge success for our national team because we didn’t have a lot of success in the past years. Now it’s really good to have an example for the younger players that we are capable of getting medals on the highest levels.”
Coached by former Buffalo Sabres winger Craig Ramsay, Slovakia went 3-1 in the preliminary round and upset the heavily-favoured United States in the Olympic quarterfinals. Slovakia tied the game with 44 seconds left and won in a shootout.
Slafkovsky, the MVP pf the Olympic tournament, now plays in the pro league in Finland for Turin Pallosura and has one goal and four points in 21 games. He played as a 16-year-old for Slovakia at the 2020-21 world juniors and was also with the senior national team at the 2021 world championship and was held without a point in each tournament.
Team Slovakia had a direct Cougar connection at the Beijing tournament. Thirty-year-old defenceman Martin Marincin, one of the veterans of the team, played 1 ½ seasons in Prince George with the Cougars from 2010-12 and in now in his ninth pro season. He played 227 NHL games with Edmonton and Toronto before returning to Europe two years ago and now plays in Czechnia for HC Ocelari Trinec.
Kmec and Slafkovsky were teammates at the IIHF world junior tournament in Edmonton. The junior team had two other Olympic team defencemen – Samuel Knazko, a third-round pick of the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2020 and Simon Nemec, touted as a first-rounder in 2022.
They played two world junior games (3-2 loss to U.S., 3-0 loss to Sweden) before the tournament was shut down Dec. 29 due to COVID infections. Kmec remains hopeful the tournament will be completed sometime this summer.
“That was a really crazy level of hockey,” said Kmec. “It was a real good experience and I hope the world juniors will be repeating in the summer. I hope I will get in the best form and play well.”
The six-foot-three, 198-pound Kmec is trying to improve his standing as NHL Central Scouting’s 92nd-ranked draft eligible skater playing hockey in North America. Through 44 games with the Cougars, he has two goals and 12 assists for 14 points, with 21 minutes in penalties.
“I think I play lot harder than when I came here from Europe, and I think I’m also playing faster, trying to make more good plays on the puck,” said Kmec. “It’s a lot more physical. This is the most physical league in the world for junior.”
Kmec’s hockey idol is former Cougar defenceman Zdeno Chara, now with the New York Islanders, who at age 44 is just one game shy of tying Chris Chelios’s NHL record for most games played by a defenceman (1,650). Chara will tie it Tuesday in Seattle if he’s in the lineup for the Islanders that night.
Kmec met Chara last summer at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup U-18 tournament when he came by the dressing room to give Kmec and Team Slovakia a pep talk before their semifinal game against Russia. Slovakia won that game and went on to claim the silver medal, their highest-ever finish.
“One coach said he wouldn’t play pro hockey and he did it, he’s one of the best in history,” said Kmec.
“He’s had an incredible career. He’s my hockey idol. He should come back to Prince George.”
