"The whole country will be watching hockey" - Slovakia seeks history at Beijing 2022

Across Slovakia on Thursday (17 February) night, alarm clocks are being set.

In the morning - 5:10 am Slovakian time to be exact - there will be must-watch Olympic action as their national team takes on Finland in the men’s ice hockey semi-finals at Beijing 2022.

"The whole internet in Slovakia is about hockey right now,” said Slovakia’s goalkeeper coach Jan Lasak in a phone interview with Olympics.com from Beijing. He was also a member of the 2002 Slovak team that won the world title.

“People are crazy there already. It's a 5am game in Slovakia tomorrow morning, so everybody's going to be watching,” he continued. “My friend, she's a teacher in school, she said, ‘We didn't have classes. We were watching TV and everybody in school was running, yelling or celebrating.’ So it's going to be like that tomorrow, and hopefully, we're going to make them happy.”

They’ve got plenty to be happy about already. Slovakia knocked off top-seeded Team USA in the quarter-finals in a thrilling shootout.

The game-winning goal from Peter Cehlarik sparked joy back home as young, aspiring players erupted in the hockey club of Lasak’s 2002 teammate Michal Handzus and shared by another, Miroslav Satan, the president of the Slovakian Ice Hockey Federation, on Twitter.

“I just felt like it needs to be shared,” four-time Olympian and 2009 Stanley Cup winner Satan told Olympics.com. “I think people need to see how much it means for our little fans and our big fans back home.”

“Everybody’s always watching hockey and when the wins came piling up together, everybody was starting to watch more and more,” said three-time Olympian Handzus. “And now, after the win over the U.S., you know, the whole country is just talking about hockey.”

Lasak, Handzus and