In preparation for the World Championships Hungary will be taking on Sweden and Finland as part of the year long 90th anniversary celebration of the Hungarian Ice Hockey Federation.
The top two hockey nations in Europe will be visiting the Tüskecsarnok as the national teams of Sweden and Finland will be joined by a third A-Pool country with Slovenia also facing Hungary in the month of April in preparation for the Division 1/A World Championships, that will be held in Kiev Ukraine.
Sweden visited Hungary in 1937 and then again in 2007, where they played on back to back days, a 2-1 overtime win in Budapest and a 7-1 loss in Debrecen. After ten years Sweden will be back as part of the 90th anniversary celebrations that the Hungarian Ice Hockey Federation will be hosting. Sweden won the Olympics in 1994 and 2006 with also collecting nine World Championship titles.
Hungary just faced Finland this past May at the 2016 A-Pool World Championships where Finland took the win 3-0, on their way to a silver medal at the World Championships. Finland visited Budapest in 2009 and the two countries played two games. These were the first two games after the passing of Gábor Ocskay Jr., Hungary took the first game in Budapest with a shootout win with Finland winning the second game in Miskolc in a 6-0 win. Finland is a two time World Champion nation.
The third country that the senior national team will be taking on is Slovenia, a country that Hungarian hockey fans are familiar with as the two nations regularly face each other both at the senior and the youth levels as well. The two senior teams have played 27 games against each other with Hungary winning the last time in 2011 by the score of 5-1.
The last event during this time will be a U25 match where the newly formed U25 national team will take on a U25 Czech national team, an exact date has not been selected yet. Aside from an old boys game in November 2015 the two nations have not played each other since 1940.
Ticket information will be available soon on the Hungarian Ice Hockey Federation website.
90th Anniversary matches
2017 April 3rd.: Hungary-Sweden
2017 April 7th.: Hungary-Finland
2017 April 18th.: Hungary-Slovenia
2017 Division 1/A World Championships
2017 April 22nd.: 11:30 Ukraine-Hungary
2017 April 23rd.: 18:30 Hungary-Austria
2017 April 25th.: 15:00 Hungary-Korea
2017 April 27th.: 15:00 Poland-Hungary
2017 April 28th.: 11:30 Hungary-Kazakhstan
