Imagine if Slovakia eliminated the favoured Canadians in the 2026 IIHF World Junior Championship quarter-final. That would certainly join the Central European nation’s list of all-time international hockey highlights in their post-Czechoslovakia era.

At the U20 level, the Slovaks don’t have moments of glory on par with winning the gold medal at the 2002 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Gothenburg or the 2022 Olympic men’s bronze medal in Beijing. But they still have some important, cherished memories to build on.

And – with talented, up-and-coming stars like forward Tomas Chrenko and blueliner Luka Radivojevic – it feels like they’re overdue for making new memories.

Let’s take a quick look back at three of the biggest Slovak World Junior moments.

1) Bronze For the Very First Time (1999)

Participating in the elite division of the World Juniors for the fourth consecutive time, Slovakia made its first real breakthrough. Future NHLers sparked the attack in Winnipeg. Marian Gaborik scored three goals, while Ladislav Nagy paced the team with seven points.

With Daniel and Henrik Sedin pegged as top 1999 draft prospects, Sweden was considered to be the favourite in the bronze medal game. However, Slovakia came out on top with a 5-4 upset and claimed its first medal in World Junior history.

2) Stunning the Americans in Ottawa (2009)

The Slovaks entered the 2009 World Junior quarter-finals on a high note, having just beaten Finland 3-2 in a shootout on New Year’s Eve. Still, it seemed their tournament was likely to end here. They’d registered zero wins against the U.S. since 1998. And the Americans featured NHL first-round picks such as Ryan McDonagh, Kevin Shattenkirk, Ian Cole, and James van Riemsdyk.

But Slovakia came out with energy, taking first-period leads of 1-0 and 3-1 and marching on to a monumental 5-3 upset. Richard Panik scored the eventual game-winner with under nine minutes to play, and Tomas Tatar put the icing on the cake with an empty-netter for his second goal of the game.

The real story, though, was netminder Jaroslav Janus, who played out of this world with 44 stops. He couldn’t carry the Slovak team all the way to a medal – they fell 5-2 in the bronze medal game to the Russians – but it was still a superb effort by the Presov native.

3) Another Bronze Medal in Toronto

Captain Martin Reway and his teammates weren’t projected to be among the medalists at the 2015 World Juniors in Montreal and Toronto. But Slovakia caught fire at exactly the right time. First it was goalie Denis Godla outdueling none other than Finland’s Juuse Saros in a 2-1 overtime win as the Finns outshot Slovakia 38-17 at the Bell Centre. The next key preliminary-round win saw Reway notching a hat trick to help defeat Germany 5-2.
 

Godla then produced two masterpieces in the medal round to get Slovakia up on the podium. Facing Czech snipers like David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha in the quarter-final, Godla earned a 34-save shutout as Slovakia won 3-0. And far from being disheartened by a 5-1 semi-final loss to Canada, the Kezmerok native stepped up in the bronze medal game versus Sweden. Even though the Slovaks squandered a 2-0 lead, Godla made 28 saves as they pulled off a 4-2 victory, making future Tre Kronor mainstays like William Nylander and Adrian Kempe settle for fourth place.

Slovak forward Samuel Petra couldn’t contain his enthusiasm for the goaltender named tournament MVP: “Godla is an amazing guy. He has a lot of luck, but he’s very good! Everybody likes him. He’s our hero. He’s a rock star. He’s everything for us, our god. We can pray to him because he's awesome!”