Milano Cortina 2026: Get to Know Team Czechia

The Para ice hockey competition at the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games will see the world’s best teams gather from 7 to 15 March at the newly built Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena – a state-of-the-art venue designed to showcase the speed and physicality of the sport. 

The compact schedule and single-venue format will create an intense atmosphere, with multiple high-stakes matchups unfolding across nine days of competition.

The eight qualified teams will be divided into two preliminary-round groups of four. Each team will play three round-robin games within its group, with the top two advancing to the semifinals. The remaining teams will move into classification games to determine fifth through eighth place. With little margin for error in a short tournament, every shift — and every point — will matter.

Here’s a look at No. 3-seeded Czechia.

Background 

Czechia has steadily established itself as one of Europe’s most consistent and disciplined Para ice hockey programmes, combining structured defensive systems with timely scoring and strong goaltending. The Czechs enter Milano Cortina as the No. 3 seed and are riding the momentum of three consecutive bronze-medal finishes at the World Championships (2023, 2024, 2025), a stretch that underscores their ability to perform on the sport’s biggest stages.

This will mark Czechia’s fifth straight appearance at the Paralympic Winter Games. While they have become a regular semifinal contender at Worlds, the Paralympic podium has remained elusive. Their best finishes came with back-to-back fifth-place results in 2010 and 2014, followed by sixth-place finishes in 2018 and at the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games. Closing that gap between World Championships success and Paralympic breakthrough is the clear objective in 2026.

They consistently have challenged top teams such as the USA, Canada and China, yet have never finished higher than fifth place on the Paralympic stage. If Czechia can capitalize on power-play opportunities and maintain its trademark defensive discipline, though, it has the experience and composure needed to contend for its first Paralympic podium in Milano Cortina.

Watch out for the Czechs 🇨🇿 at @milanocortina26. They are hungry for a medal. #ParaIceHockey #Paralympics @Paralympics pic.twitter.com/rSGh2Gr0wj

— Para Ice Hockey (@paraicehockey) February 17, 2026

Roster Breakdown

Forwards: Michal Geier, Zdenek Habl, Vaclav Hecko, Alex Ohar, Filip Vesely, Martin Zizlavsky, David Ondrak, Patek Theodor

Defenders: Pavel Dolezal, Pavel Kubes, Radek Zelinka, Lukas Kapo, David Vrubel

Goaltenders: Martin Kudela, Patrik Sedlacek

Paralympic Winter Games History 

2022: 6th place
2018: 6th place 
2014: 5th place
2010: 5th place

Athlete to Watch

Patrik Sedlacek’s journey makes him one of the most intriguing players on the Czech roster. Four years ago, he represented his country as a forward at the Paralympics. Now 25, he has reinvented himself as a goaltender — a rare and demanding position switch at the elite international level. The transition has paid off. At the 2025 World Championships, Sedlacek played all five games for Czechia, posting an impressive 88.89 save percentage and a 1.90 goals-against average. His athleticism — sharpened by his experience as a former skater — allows him to read plays aggressively and handle the puck confidently behind the net.

Matchup to Watch

Czechia vs. Japan on Saturday, March 7: Czechia’s tournament opener against Japan will set the tone not only for their preliminary round but potentially for the entire competition. Both nations have made significant strides over the past Paralympic cycle and are eager to establish themselves as consistent semifinal threats. Japan’s speed and transition game present a stylistic contrast to Czechia’s structured, defense-first approach. With only three preliminary-round games and little margin for error, this matchup carries added weight. A strong start would boost Czechia’s confidence and positioning in the group, while a loss would immediately increase the pressure in an unforgiving, compact schedule.