MARTIN POSPISIL AND SLOVAKIA QUALIFY FOR THE 2026 WINTER OLYMPICS MEN’S HOCKEY TOURNAMENT
When the National Hockey League pauses its season in February 2026, at least one member of the Calgary Flames will be a bit busy during the break. On Sunday, Slovakia beat Kazakhstan by a 3-1 score to officially qualify for the 2026 Winter Olympics men’s hockey tournament.
Slovakia won the Group D round robin tournament outright to qualify for the Olympics in one of three available qualification spots. The spot in Group E went to Latvia and the spot in Group F went to Denmark.
Slovakia, Latvia and Denmark join the hosts from Italy and the automatic qualifiers (by virtue of their placement in the IIHF rankings) from Canada, Finland, Russia, the United States, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Czechia in the tournament. In the event that Russia is not allowed to participate in 2025-26 IIHF competitions – Russia and Belarus have been suspended from IIHF competition for several years due to the invasion of Ukraine – then Russia’s spot would go to France, who were the highest-finishing second place team in the three groups.
Playing almost exclusively as a centre in the Olympic qualifiers, Pospisil had three assists and a plus-two rating over three games, and he also won half of his 42 draws. Considering he hasn’t played much centre since going pro, that’s a pretty impressive statline in a short, high-stakes international competition. It’s another strong showing over the past 12 months for Pospisil: he began the 2023-24 season with the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers, but was called up to the NHL in early November by the Flames and carved out a niche for himself as a skilled agitator. He signed a two-year contract extension back in February that will pay him a cool $1 million in each of the next two seasons.
The 2026 Winter Olympics take place Feb. 5-22, 2026 in Italy, with the men’s hockey tournament being held in two venues in Milan. Given Pospisil’s prominent roles for Slovakia at the 2024 World Championships and the Olympic qualifying tournament, we’re willing to bet that he’ll be named to the Olympic roster as well.
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2024-09-01T20:37:35Z dg43tfdfdgfd