Pool B: Czechia & Finland

Hope you all enjoyed the Pool A previews (see Part I & Part II) and have come back for the Pool B previews, part of our IIHF U18 World Championship coverage! These two teams are very interesting, with Czechia on the rise and Finland trying to claw their way back to relevance. Read on to learn the names to keep an eye on starting January 10th.

Czechia

A recent trend at the IIHF U18 World Championships has been Canada and the USA facing their biggest threats of the tournament in the semi-finals. As mentioned before, the last two of three gold medal games have not been Canada versus the USA. Instead, two other teams have made their way to the final in Sweden and Czechia. The Czechs and Sweden have boasted the fastest developing U18 programs, which has resulted in them legitimately pushing to be on at least somewhat equal ground with Canada and the USA.

The Czechs, especially in the last two years, nearly made history by making back-to-back gold medal games. And they became the fourth team in tournament history to earn a silver medal. In 2024, they upset the superpowered Canadian team featuring Caitlin Kraemer and Chloe Primerano to earn their way into the gold medal game. This past 2025 U18 Worlds, they weren’t far off from doing it again, as they held a 1-0 lead into the second period then were only down 3-2 headed into the third period. Head coach Dusan Andrasovsky will always ensure his team is going to be a threat and that shouldn’t change this season.

Forwards

When Czechia won its silver medal in 2024, it was led by a first line featuring Tereza Plosová, Adéla Šapovalivová, and Anezka Cabelova, who combined for 28 points. It was a dangerous top line, and they’re going to need something similar if they want to compete this time around. For Julie Jebousková, this feels like her calling. She was second on the Czech team with five points at the previous U18 Worlds and is the leading contender to be the team’s primary offensive player. As a bonus, she’s been playing hockey in North America for the last three years. So she’s not only used to playing against North American players, but on her U19 team at Shattuck-St. Mary’s, Jebousková has 52 points in 29 games. It’s not the prep team that has the Canada and USA national team players on it, but this team does have a steady history of getting players into the NCAA.

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Jebousková can’t do it alone, though, and there’s some intriguing names who could potentially add the scoring depth Czechia needs. While Jebousková has been in North America for the past three years, Tereza Gildainová is currently in her second year of North American hockey and thriving. Last season, Gildainová played for the U16 AAA team out of Lovell Academy, with 122 points in 83 games, good enough for fourth on the team, ahead of Team USA U18 players Chyna Taylor and Sydney Stoughton. This year Gildainová has graduated to the U19 level and has not lost a step. She’s the clear offensive driver on her team, with 23 goals and 56 points in 35 games. Once again, it's another program that develops NCAA talent and has had USA National Team players come through as well.

There are two other players who jump off the page at you, and one of them is Kateřina Pěnčíková. The Czech forward clearly loves scoring goals. She has 10 goals in nine games in the Czech women’s league, and last season, she finished fifth in team scoring on her U15 team with 24 goals in 29 games. To add to Pěnčíková’s resume, she’s already committed to RIT of the NCAA. While not being a premier NCAA program, they have shown themselves to be competitive. Lastly, I wanted to point out Andrea Kantorová, who is playing out of Austria and more specifically KSV Neuberg Highlanders, where she has 13 points in 14 EWHL games.

Defenders

Unlike previous years, the Czech blueline might contain their best player in Johanna Tischler. At the 2025 U18 Worlds, she had a respectable three points in six games. This season in U18 national team exhibition games, she’s racked up seven points in six games, leading the way for the U18 roster, with four of those points being goals to boot. The 5’ 8” blueliner plays a punishing game and has been perfecting it in North America for the past three years. If anyone is used to the style of North American hockey on North American ice, it's Tischler.

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If Czechia needs another potential shutdown blueliner who is used to the North American game, look no further than Šarlota Stýblová. She’s also been in North America for three years now and was also on Czechia’s 2025 U18 Worlds team. There’s two other blueliners I quickly want to cover before moving onto the goalies. First is ’10-born Klára Šrámková, who looks like the future of the Czech blueline and is having a great season on her U15 boys team. Then there’s Ellen Jarabková, who was very productive for Czechia last U18 Worlds with four points in six games. If Czechia is looking for offensive threats from the blueline, watch out for these two.

Goalies

What’s fun about these tournaments is finding out which Czech goalie is about to make a name for themselves. We’ve already seen Aneta Senkova and Michaela Hesová give the Czechs someone to look forward to behind Klára Peslarová. Who is going to throw their hat into the ring to be Czechia’s future goalie? The goalie with the inside track right now is most likely Anna Horáková. She played on Czechia’s U18 Worlds team last year, and in U18 international friendlies this season, she's tied for most starts while putting up a 0.921 save percentage.

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Horáková is also maybe facing the toughest competition of the three goalies, as she’s been playing in Austria for two straight years now and been getting reps in the EWHL. The other goalie who is probably pushing for the starting spot is Lili Chmelařová. She was also given three starts in U18 international friendlies this season, and it looks like they’re prepping her to be the heir of the U18 team for the next two years of her eligibility if she’s not the number one goalie this time around.

The Czechia national team program is on the rise and it’s hard not to imagine they’re not going to be a threat again. Dusan Andrasovsky has been an excellent head coach for this program and he gets these players moving. With U18 Worlds being played in North America and having so many players in North America developing and thriving, Czechia should at least be contending for a bronze medal. Let up against them if you dare.

Finland

At the senior level of international hockey, Finland is considered a threat to win a bronze medal and maybe even upset Canada or the USA. You’d think with all this success at the senior level, it’d be because their U18 team was finding the same level of success. That’s not really been the case for Finland when it comes to the IIHF U18 World Championships. They won a bronze medal in 2011 and didn’t win another until 2019. Since 2019, the situation has started to look up for Finland, and they went to five straight bronze medal games. They only ended up winning in 2019 and 2022, but that's better than nothing.

In 2022, it looked like Finland was on the up and up. They actually beat Canada in the round robin 2-0, then narrowly lost 2-1 in the semi-final. In 2023, Finland wasn’t great in the round robin but forced Canada into overtime in the semifinal and held a 2-1 lead in the third period. This is where their hold on being a top four U18 nation started to get shaky, though. That continued into the 2024 U18 Worlds, where they narrowly beat Slovakia 2-0 in the quarters then lost two straight games to the US and Canada. Then comes 2025 and the wheels fall off. Their top scorer got two points and they lost 6-0 in the quarterfinal to Czechia.

Forwards

As I alluded to above, Finland’s offence was non-existent at the 2025 U18 Worlds. No one had more than one goal or two points. No one stepped up and just put the puck in the net. Now the upside is that Finland brought an extremely young team to the 2025 tournament with an average age under 16, where normally teams are bringing teams with an average age over 16. They’ve only lost five skaters from last year’s roster due to them aging out. They did get to keep the two returning forwards who hit two points: Yenna Kolmonen and Tinja Tapani.

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Kolmonen coming back is a big boon to the Finnish team. She was the only Finnish player to finish with a positive goal differential, was second in the team for shots on goal, had the game winning goal against Japan, and averaged 15:24 in ice time. Kolmonen is having a tad of a downswing of a year with Team Kuortane of the Auroraliiga (Finland’s top women’s league). And in U18 international friendlies, she hasn’t been a great producer but still is fourth on the team in U18 international friendlies points. Hopefully being back at U18 Worlds in a more consistent environment will allow Kolmonen to take that next step.

The other two-point-getter from the 2015 U18 Worlds for Finland was Tinja Tapani. While it’s fun that Susanna Tapani’s cousin is looking like she might be the next Finnish national team star, it’s not because Susanna Tapani is her cousin but rather her U18 resume up to this point. Tinja Tapani has been consistently productive for the Finnish U18 national team in both U18 international friendlies as well as the U18 Worlds themselves. This will be Tapani’s third U18 Worlds and she should play a big part. In 2025, at the age of 15, Tapani played nearly 21 minutes per game and picked up two assists. In three U18 friendlies this year, she has two points. It's a very small sample size, but she’s producing, and Finland is hoping her production continues to improve this year.

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A player I’m very interested in seeing how they do is Julia Kuhta. EliteProspects puts her at 5’ 9” and 132 pounds, but she looks closer to Hilary Knight out there with her size. What’s most interesting is Kuhta is a goal scorer and you need those to win games. You need players who are just good at putting the puck in the net and that’s what Kuhta does. She scored 10 goals in her Auroraliiga debut last season and has been Finland’s leading goal scorer in U18 international friendlies for the last two seasons. One more player to keep an eye on is Emmi Loponen, who is in her first year in the Auroraliiga. She's scoring a point per game—25 points in 25 games—which ties her for the team lead in points.

Defenders

A typical aspect of the U18 Worlds is teams coming in with an untested top pairing because their top pairing from the previous tournament has aged out. Finland is in that spot this year as both Nelly Andersson and Elli Pohjanaho are gone. With that comes opportunity, though, and the first blueliner who comes to mind is Oona Hämäläinen. She averaged the second-most minutes on the 2025 U18 Worlds Finnish blueline and is going to be relied upon to be the steady blueliner for Finland. Hämäläinen specializes in defensive play and being mean, which will be helpful against the North American teams, who tend to bring some physicality on the North American ice.

When it comes to offence from the blueline, the coaching staff is probably going to look towards Viivi-Maija Ruonakoski, who averaged 16:45 minutes at the 2015 U18 Worlds and led the Finnish blueline in shots on goal. In the Auroraliiga with Kärpät, Ruonakoski is second on her team in points from a blueliner and the most points of a U18 blueliner in the Auroraliiga. The other blueliner to watch for to provide Finland with some offence is Fanny Kyrkkö. At U18 international friendlies this season, she leads all Finnish blueliners with two goals, which I get isn’t a lot, but if someone on the blueline can get a few goals it goes a long way.

Goalies

The stats don’t really show it, but Kerttu Kuja-Halkola had one of the best runs of a U18 Finnish goalie we’ve seen in a while. She was the number one goalie for three straight U18 Worlds from the age of 15 to 17, bringing Finland to two bronze medal games and a near upset over Canada in the 2023 semifinals. Based on starts in U18 international friendlies and who started versus Canada in pre-tournament play, Eerika Kujala has the inside track on the starting job. Kujala has posted a 0.916 save percentage in six U18 friendlies, better than Pihla Ikonen’s 0.873 save percentage, and Kujala’s numbers in the second tier Finnish league have been good as well. Right now, I’d guess she’s the number one going in.

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That’s not to say Ikonen is out of the running for the starting spot. She’s the only goalie among this trio to be playing Auroraliiga games, with a 0.903 save percentage and 8-2-0 record. HPK is a great team, so it’s expected Ikonen should have decent numbers and she does. She’s also getting to play behind Finnish senior national team member Anni Keisala. I’d be surprised if Saimi Pesola was in line for the starting job, and this will most likely be a learning experience for her as she is a 2010 birth year. She's certainly an interesting goalie, though, who is in her second year of the San Jose Jr Sharks girls AAA hockey program.

Finland took a younger team to the 2025 U18 Worlds and took hard losses with the idea that they’ll be ready to go this year. Finland is in a slightly better position than Switzerland, but both teams are on the same page in that they need some success here to show they can graduate impact players to the senior team. I'm going to give them a bit of grace here, as they ended up in the Pool of Doom with the USA, Czechia, and Nela Lopušanová. It’s very possible they end up fourth in Pool B and it’d be difficult to be too mad at them. If they want to show that Finnish hockey is still a threat to the hockey world, they need a strong performance and to end up back in the semifinal.