Czechia defeats Latvia for bronze at 2026 U-18 Men’s World Championship
Czechia took home the bronze medal at the 2026 IIHF U-18 Men’s World Championship in Slovakia, beating Latvia 4-1 on Saturday.
The Czechs had previously won bronze three times, with the last instance coming back in 2005 – three years before the oldest players in this year’s tournament were born. Latvia had never qualified for anything beyond the semifinals at the U-18 level prior to this year, so their fourth-place finish was the best the team has ever achieved.
Bronze goes to CZECHIA! 🥉🇨🇿👏 #WorldJuniors #IIHF @czehockey
Latvia has won one medal in a major IIHF competition, taking home bronze at the 2023 Men’s World Championship. Latvia has finished seventh at the past two World Juniors, tying its best result ever.
The Latvians struck first, with Martins Kalucans scoring a beautiful goal following a give-and-go with Ricards Rutkis to make it 1-0 at 11:23. The lead didn’t last long, though, as Matej Tomanek scored at 14:26 to tie things up at one apiece. David Huk would then capitalize less than a minute later, taking a feed from Tomanek to make it 2-1 on the power play. Huk scored with 27.3 seconds left on the man advantage to seal the deal, while Simon Katolicky scored an extra for good measure.
Czechia advanced to the bronze medal game after giving up a 3-2 lead to Sweden in one of the semifinals on Friday. Sweden ultimately won the game 4-3 in overtime to qualify for the gold medal game. Latvia, meanwhile, lost 1-0 in the other semifinal.
Slovakia and Sweden will play for gold at 1:00 PM ET on Saturday. Canada had won the past two titles, but fell short in the quarterfinal.
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