Team Czechia has more difficult path to Olympic medal after ‘tough loss’

Team Czechia was so close to finishing second in Group A at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, so close to having great position entering the single-elimination portion of the men’s hockey tournament.

Instead, a 4-3 overtime loss to Team Swizerland at Santagiulia Arena in Milan on Sunday could result in an eighth-place finish among the 12 teams.

“Yeah, but if you want to win, you have to beat anybody,” Czechia defenseman Radko Gudas said.

That has to be the mindset Czechia (1-0-1-1) must have entering the quarterfinals, which begin Tuesday. Matchups are yet to be determined. Czechia was third behind Team Canada (2-0-0-0) and Switzerland (1-1-1-0) entering Canada’s game against Team France (0-0-2-0) on Sunday, the last preliminary game in Group A,

This is Czechia’s ninth appearance in the Olympics. It has won gold once (at the 1998 Nagano Olympics), and it hasn’t had a top-three finish since taking home the bronze at the 2006 Turin Olympics.

Czechia’s players weren’t exactly in the mood to point out the positives, including a point in the standings, following its loss to the Swiss. It’s in a tough spot after having chances to defeat Switzerland, which was without Kevin Fiala. The forward had surgery and is out for the rest of the Olympics after sustaining a lower-body injury in a 5-1 loss against Team Canada on Friday. Fiala left that game on a stretcher.

An area Czechia will try to improve is the power play; it went 1-for-8 in the preliminary round, including 0-for-4 on Sunday.

“I mean, those guys know exactly what to do,” Gudas said. “Sometimes it bounces off a few things, and it goes in out of nowhere. I thought they were doing a great job. I thought they were a threat out there. It’s not like they’re losing anything for us.”

Czechia also had a goal waved off due to David Pastrnak interfering with Swiss goalie Leonardo Genoni before forward Martin Necas tied it 3-3 with 2:06 remaining in regulation.

“I think we still [have to] get better than we showed,” Necas said. “We wanted to win. It didn’t matter if [it came] in regulation or overtime, shootout. We wanted to win and didn’t do that today.”

Czechia isn’t done yet, but the path to a medal has become more difficult.

“Tough loss, yeah,” forward David Pastrnak said. “Tough overtime, but we have to move on.”