Moose Jaw Warriors forward Andrej Tomasec and Team Slovakia were unable to pick up a win at the World Junior A Hockey Championship in Truro, N.S. this past week.
Slovakia posted an 0-4 record through the round robin at the five-team tournament, which features the top players from Canada’s nine Junior A leagues broken into Team West and Team East taking on teams from the United States, Sweden and Slovakia.
Two players from the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League are playing for Team West in Humboldt Broncos forward Matthew Van Blaricom and Nipawin Hawks defenceman Ronan Buckberger.
Tomasec and Slovakia opened the tournament with a 7-2 loss to Canada East on Sunday, Dec. 10 before dropping a 6-1 decision to the U.S. the following day.
Slovakia then had their closest game of the tournament on Wednesday, Dec. 13 when they came out of the first period tied 2-2 with Canada West before eventually dropping a 7-3 decision.
Tomasec picked up his lone point of the tournament in that contest and it was a pretty one at that. The former KooKoo U18 standout sent a pass from the corner to the front of the net for Andrej Paricka, who put a perfect redirection top shelf to tie the game 1-1 with 4:49 to play in the first.
The goal was nice enough to come in at number five in the WJAC’s Plays of the Day.
Slovakia then closed out their appearance on Friday with a 6-2 loss to Sweden.
The top four teams made the playoffs, with Canada West taking on the U.S. and Canada East battling Sweden in the semifinals.
The international assignment is the second for Tomasec, who also suited up for Slovakia at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup U18 world championship in the Czech Republic this past summer. Tomaec played four games in that tournament and was held without a point.
The Zilina, Slov. product has played in 12 games with the Warriors this season and continues to seek his first Western Hockey League point.
