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They’ve been described this week as the most physically imposing
European team to ever play in the Women’s World Championship and
that was on full display in Czechia’s convincing 7-0 victory over
Switzerland in the quarterfinals of the 2025 IIHF Women’s Worlds.
After an evenly
played first half of the opening period, the Czechs killed off
Switzerland’s first power play and then went to work, scoring five
goals in a span of 8:01 to effectively put the game away. The Czechs,
in fact, only recorded 10 shots on goal in the first period but won
all the puck battles in the Swiss zone, with the Swiss defenders
seemingly unable to hold them back.
“We said we were
gonna go hard to the net, have players in front and try to get those
rebounds, which worked for us,” said Tereza Vanišová, who scored
a goal and had two assists in the opening period.
Kristýna Kaltounková is playing in her first IIHF Women’s World
Championship and she’s added a goal-scoring element that has
sometimes been lacking on the Czech women’s national team. Through
three games, she has scored two of the team’s five goals and her
rocket from the point on the power play late in Saturday’s game
against Finland got everyone’s attention.
For fans of any team
that she’s played for know – be that the University of Maine, the
Boston Pride, Leksands IF in Sweden, the Toronto Six or the PWHL
teams in Ottawa and Montreal – Vanišová thrives when the game
gets physical.
“I think hockey
should be a physical game,” she said. “It’s too bad the refs
are calling (so many) penalties because some of them are just not
penalties, it’s just hockey. I think the bodychecks should be
allowed, for sure. I think that’s hockey.”
Vanišová is one of
several 1996-born players that have played on the Czech national team
for a long time. That group won bronze at the 2014 U-18 Women’s
Worlds and later that year, played for the senior women’s national
team as 17-year-olds in the Division I Group A tournament on home ice
in Přerov.
After opening with a 3-0 win over Switzerland, Czechia dropped its
second game of the 2025 IIHF Women’s World Championship 4-0 to the
USA despite being without Kateřina Mrázová, Michaela Pejzlová or
starting goaltender Klára Peslarová.
In addition to
Vanišová, the other ‘96ers are Vendula Přibylová, defenders
Aneta Tejralová and Dominika Lásková and goaltender Klára
Peslarová. Denisa Křižová and Kateřina Mrázová, who are a bit
older, were also on the national team back in ‘94.
“We’ve been
through a lot, actually, as a team,” she said reminiscently when
reminded of how far the group has come. “We have a core of players
who’ve been on the national team for so many years. We’ve been
through it together and … I think we’re getting better each
year.”
Looking ahead to the
semifinals, she said, “Well, the USA has a really good team and we
obviously lost the game against them in the group. I don’t know,
we’ll try are hardest and see.”
Adéla Šapovalivová, who made a name for
herself in international hockey with a couple of brilliant
performances for Czechia at the U-18
Women’s World Championships, is showing that she has the skills and
drive to compete among the best players in the world at the current
IIHF Women’s Worlds in České Budějovice. On Monday, she scored her team’s only goal in a 7-1 loss to Canada – a game that was actually much closer than the final score suggests as it was just 2-1 after 40 minutes.
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