Czechs upbeat ahead of USA showdown

Head Coach David Bruk thought his side fed too much off the crowd in Breclav and didn´t focus enough on the matter at hand. "We got too hung up on the atmosphere from our home crowd, which meant we got frustrated when things didn´t go our way today," he said, but also had reasons to be positive.

" If we take the good parts from the first and third periods today then we have a big chance - but we played a better game there against Sweden than we did against Switzerland, as strange as it may sound. "

"The USA won´t be an easy game tomorrow, they play very physically which may cause us some problems. As we saw today, our players don´t react well to this style of game. If we stay organised we´ll be able to play against them, and we have good special teams to win through."

17-year old forward Jakub Lauko is one of the highest rated Czechs ahead of the 2018 NHL entry draft, and agreed with his coach. "We have to take the positives from the third period. If we win tomorrow we can say that the tournament was successful because we made the semi-finals. On the other hand if we lose, it will suck," he admitted somewhat bluntly.

Lauko continued: "We all know that the USA hasn´t sent its best players here, we´re a bit tired but it´s the beginning of the season - we have a big crowd here and have to do our best no matter what. In some parts of the game against Sweden we played well, but in others we got frustrated and lost our focus."