The U-20 World Junior Hockey Championship in the elite league in the USA has started. One of the favorites in the opening match was the Swedish team and the Slovak team.

The Swedish youth team won with a score of 3:2. Let’s touch on two points from forward Anton Frondell, who was selected third overall by Chicago in the last draft.

At the same time, Slovakia also made a comeback, losing 0:2, but were still defeated at the end of the match.

In addition to the Swedes and Slovaks, teams from the USA, Switzerland and Germany will also play in this group.

World Hockey Championship U-20. Group A

Swedish – Slovakia 3:2 (0:0, 2:1, 1:1)

Discs: 29:05 Frondell (Frey, Stenberg) – 1:0, 33:16 (Frondell, Berglund) – 2:0, 39:55 Run (Misiak) – 2:1, 50:55 Tomik (Pitka) – 2:2, 56:03 Stenberg (Genborg) – 3:2

Goalkeepers: Harenstam – Lendak

Dmitry Khristich, the coach of the Ukraine national hockey team, made a 2025 prediction for the team. The main event was the World Championship in Division 1A, where the team only lost their chance to reach the elite league in the last match.

“I think the year has been positive. We won most of our matches. I also rate our performance in the World Championship positively. Many people probably wanted us to get into the elite league immediately, but I believe that we need to gain experience and confidence at this level. You have to believe in yourself and build on your experience by getting positive results against D1A teams and promotion teams that constantly jump from league to league.”

“We need to learn to play the full 60 minutes, to play against any opponent, to be tactically flexible… All these and many other nuances still need to be worked out,” Khristic said.

A leaders’ match took place as part of the Ukrainian Hockey Championship – the current champion Kremenchuk hosted Sokol as part of the festive meeting at Christmas.

The match ended with Kremenchuk scoring 4:1, and the match was abandoned twice due to air raids.

At the same time, the home team lost 0:1, but they scored two goals on the power play in the second period and eventually hit an empty net. Vitaly Lyalka scored a double goal.

While Sokol finishes 2025 as the leader, Kremenchuk is one point behind and has a game in hand.

Ukrainian Hockey Championship

Kremenchuk – Sokol 4:1 (0:1, 2:0, 2:0)

Discs: 02:48 Mazur (Timchenko, Cherdak) – 0:1, 27:09 Lyalka (Matusevich, Krivoshapkin – large) – 1:1, 28:40 Andryushchenko (Krivenko – large) – 2:1, 59:03 Lyalka – 3:1, 59:10 Poperzhay (Gevorgyan) – 4:1

Goalkeepers: Zakharchenko – Petrov (Makarenko)