"I'll say this only once. As far as I'm concerned, this story is over. This is the end of my cooperation with the national team," Matjaž Kopitar started his explanation. He led the lynxes through Vojens to the Sochi Olympic Games, and then achieved a historical success last February by entering the quarter finals, and winning the 7th place at the tournament of the best ice hockey players in the world.
Matjaž Kopitar ended his career as head coach of the national team
However, at the world championship Kopitar's plans were not realised. In Bratislava 2011, Stockholm 2013 and also this year in Ostrava his team was pushed out from the elite, and the Slovenian team managed to win only twice, and add three points for defeats in the extension lottery, while they lost 15 times.
"I am not sure about the future, but I know my intentions, and I'll say this only once. As far as I am concerned, this story is over, and you should not expect from me any more comments or explanations," Kopitar announced his resignation from the position of the head coach of the male national hockey team.
It is easy to criticize
"Unfortunately Slovenia is teaming with people spewing negativity; they present the majority. Let them live with that, if they can. It will be difficult for me to live without these boys, who are good, and deserve better support than they have. There were a lot of beautiful moments, and some sad ones as well. And even here you can find people who only criticize and have a negative effect on everybody," Kopitar expressed his disappointment, and at his press conference for the Slovenian media representatives pointed his finger also at a part of the media, and at the so-called hockey opposition gathered around the former president of the Ice Hockey Federation of Slovenia Ernest Nestl Aljančič.
"This team has repeatedly proved that it knows how to fight. But some people don't appreciate that, and are smearing their reputation, and mine as well. You know who these people are. I hope they can live with that, and I hope I will be able to as well," the 49-year old head coach from Jesenice spoke harsh words, but he refrained from speaking directly.
"I intended to end this story last year, after Goyang, where in my opinion we achieved extremely good result. There I realized that there was hope for us to upgrade our story. Here in Ostrava we failed to do it. It was my wish to keep the team among the elite, and to withdraw with dignity, but unfortunately we were not successful," Kopitar said. He explained that after the last year's World Championship in South Korea he almost decided to resign as the head coach, but in the end he signed a new contract with the final goal of qualifying again for the Olympic Games at Pyeongchang 2018.
