{"id":481559,"date":"2026-02-17T21:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T21:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/481559\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T21:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T21:48:10","slug":"czechia-ready-for-rematch-vs-canada-in-quarterfinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/481559\/","title":{"rendered":"Czechia ready for rematch vs. Canada in quarterfinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Czechia knows what to expect playing Canada at the Olympics but this time around, it’s hoping for a better outcome with the stakes at an all-time high.<\/p>\n

Once again, Czechia will face the hockey powerhouse in the quarterfinals of the men\u2019s Olympic tournament, eyeing a better result than the 5-0 thrashing it received in the opener.<\/p>\n

For Czech forward Martin Necas, the opportunity to see Canada again on the Olympic stage carries both excitement and a sense of unfinished business.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s simply just fantastic,\u201d Necas said to reporters<\/a> of the rematch after their game against Denmark on Tuesday. \u201cWe let them win the first one because we knew we were not going to win two in a row against Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the odds certainly won’t be in Czechia’s favour going into the rematch, the team believes it can be better the second time around.<\/p>\n

David Pastrnak believed it’s up to the team to have the right mindset in the rematch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might be the best team ever, so maybe we have to put the respect aside a little bit and try to take their game to them,\u201d Pastrnak told reporters<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Canada locked up the top seed in the men’s tournament, which means it gets the lowest seed in the quarterfinals. Puck drop between Canada and Czechia is scheduled for 10:40 a.m. ET \/ 7:40 a.m. PT on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Although Canada has breezed through the tournament, history suggests that the overwhelming favourite still has to live up to the hype.<\/p>\n

It will be the first Canada-Czechia men’s hockey playoff game with NHL players at the Olympics since 1998. In that game, Czechia came away with a 2-1 semifinal victory when Canada did not use Wayne Gretzky in a shootout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Czechia knows what to expect playing Canada at the Olympics but this time around, it’s hoping for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-481559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}