TEMPE – The Arizona sun bears little resemblance to the frozen ponds of Slovakia, but for Arizona State freshmen Richard Baran and Samuel Urban, the desert has become the next stop on a growing Slovak pipeline to college hockey.
Baran, one of nine freshmen on the Sun Devils roster, saw the NCAA as an opportunity for stability and long-term development rather than making another short stop in Europe.
“You have four more years to develop here,” said Baran, who is one of nine freshmen at ASU. “You don’t have to worry about where you’re going next. The NCAA can prepare you really well for the next level.”
The surge of Slovak players in the NCAA reflects a shift as more young players are trading the traditional European professional paths for the extended development, education and exposure offered by college hockey in the United States.
Slovak Ice Hockey Federation president Miroslav Šatan has pointed to college hockey as an increasingly feasible pathway for the nation’s top young talent, as the NCAA continues to attract international players.
“It’s definitely becoming more attractive for our players, for Slovak players,” Šatan said. “We can see it. If you look back 10 years or more, this season is our most successful.”
Under Šatan’s leadership, the federation has invested heavily in development programs that expand opportunities beyond Europe.
“It’s hard to measure their success,” Šatan said, “but we can see that a lot of players are going overseas and playing in good leagues there. It seems like we could have hopefully a better decade than the last one.”
Per QuantHockey, a record 18 Slovak players compete in the NCAA this season from a nation of about 5.5 million people. That represents a sharp increase from just seven during the 2021-22 season. A major piece of that growth is Slovakia’s federation-funded U18 program, modeled in part after the highly successful United States National Team Development Program, which has produced big increases in NHL-drafted Americans, with 76 over the past five seasons.
“We have something maybe not quite as big, but we have something similar here that the federation is financing U18 for the whole year,” Šatan said.
The results have followed. Slovakia’s U18 team has reached the semifinals of the World Championships three straight years — something Šatan says had never happened before.
The country’s progress was further underscored at the 2022 NHL Draft when Slovaks Juraj Slafkovský and Šimon Nemec made history by being selected first and second overall, making them the highest two draft picks in the country’s history.
Freshman goalie Samuel Urban said part of the appeal of ASU was that he “really liked the idea that it’s a new program and we have newcomers who have a chance to make history.” (Photo courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics)
The college pathway resonated with Baran, who arrived at ASU during a period of rapid growth for the program and was immediately struck by the scale of college hockey in the United States.
“I’ve never had so many people at a game,” Baran said. “The culture is so different. They take the sports so differently here. It’s amazing how many people go to college games.”
For Urban, he first learned about the NCAA route during his junior years in Slovakia.
“A coach asked me what I wanted to do after juniors, and that’s when I learned it could be a real path to develop and get noticed,” Urban said. “I was like, ‘Well, going to the NHL,’ and he was like, ‘OK, congrats, but you’re probably not going there.’”
Baran’s route to ASU was shaped by constant movement. Growing up, he bounced between junior teams, often prioritizing ice time over results. The chance to join a growing program with long-term vision stood out.
“I really liked the idea that it’s a new program and we have newcomers who have a chance to make history,” Baran said. “That was the biggest thing for me.”
Urban’s journey was similarly unconventional. Raised in the small town of Dolné Kočkovce, he regularly traveled to find specialized goaltending coaching, often playing against significantly older competition.
“I didn’t really have a goalie coach when I started and I was traveling to find a goalie coach,” Urban said. “I played with guys four years older. If they had a top game and the coach didn’t let me go in, I’d play with the guys three years older, and if not, then my year.”
Although they committed to ASU from thousands of miles away, Urban and Baran weren’t strangers. They spent time together on Slovakia’s U18 national team at the 2022-23 IIHF World Juniors in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Slovakia finished sixth.
Now in Tempe, the two live and train together, and have quickly become inseparable.
“We are pretty close,” Urban said. “We do almost everything together, grab lunch, dinner. We have exactly the same schedule in school.”
They even have the same sense of humor, even if nobody around them understands their jokes. One such memory stands out.
“The yoga class,” Urban said. “Richie and I were dying there. The teacher was just looking at me and Richie. We felt so bad, we were totally red, sweating because we were dying laughing.”
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2026/02/03/asu-hockey-slovac-urban-baran/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org”>Cronkite News</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.
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Slovakia’s hockey resurgence finds a foothold at ASU in Urban, Baran
Cooper Krigbaum, Cronkite News
February 3, 2026
TEMPE – The Arizona sun bears little resemblance to the frozen ponds of Slovakia, but for Arizona State freshmen Richard Baran and Samuel Urban, the desert has become the next stop on a growing Slovak pipeline to college hockey.
Baran, one of nine freshmen on the Sun Devils roster, saw the NCAA as an opportunity for stability and long-term development rather than making another short stop in Europe.
“You have four more years to develop here,” said Baran, who is one of nine freshmen at ASU. “You don’t have to worry about where you’re going next. The NCAA can prepare you really well for the next level.”
The surge of Slovak players in the NCAA reflects a shift as more young players are trading the traditional European professional paths for the extended development, education and exposure offered by college hockey in the United States.
Slovak Ice Hockey Federation president Miroslav Šatan has pointed to college hockey as an increasingly feasible pathway for the nation’s top young talent, as the NCAA continues to attract international players.
“It’s definitely becoming more attractive for our players, for Slovak players,” Šatan said. “We can see it. If you look back 10 years or more, this season is our most successful.”
Under Šatan’s leadership, the federation has invested heavily in development programs that expand opportunities beyond Europe.
“It’s hard to measure their success,” Šatan said, “but we can see that a lot of players are going overseas and playing in good leagues there. It seems like we could have hopefully a better decade than the last one.”
Per QuantHockey, a record 18 Slovak players compete in the NCAA this season from a nation of about 5.5 million people. That represents a sharp increase from just seven during the 2021-22 season. A major piece of that growth is Slovakia’s federation-funded U18 program, modeled in part after the highly successful United States National Team Development Program, which has produced big increases in NHL-drafted Americans, with 76 over the past five seasons.
“We have something maybe not quite as big, but we have something similar here that the federation is financing U18 for the whole year,” Šatan said.
The results have followed. Slovakia’s U18 team has reached the semifinals of the World Championships three straight years — something Šatan says had never happened before.
The country’s progress was further underscored at the 2022 NHL Draft when Slovaks Juraj Slafkovský and Šimon Nemec made history by being selected first and second overall, making them the highest two draft picks in the country’s history.
The college pathway resonated with Baran, who arrived at ASU during a period of rapid growth for the program and was immediately struck by the scale of college hockey in the United States.
“I’ve never had so many people at a game,” Baran said. “The culture is so different. They take the sports so differently here. It’s amazing how many people go to college games.”
For Urban, he first learned about the NCAA route during his junior years in Slovakia.
“A coach asked me what I wanted to do after juniors, and that’s when I learned it could be a real path to develop and get noticed,” Urban said. “I was like, ‘Well, going to the NHL,’ and he was like, ‘OK, congrats, but you’re probably not going there.’”
Baran’s route to ASU was shaped by constant movement. Growing up, he bounced between junior teams, often prioritizing ice time over results. The chance to join a growing program with long-term vision stood out.
“I really liked the idea that it’s a new program and we have newcomers who have a chance to make history,” Baran said. “That was the biggest thing for me.”
Urban’s journey was similarly unconventional. Raised in the small town of Dolné Kočkovce, he regularly traveled to find specialized goaltending coaching, often playing against significantly older competition.
“I didn’t really have a goalie coach when I started and I was traveling to find a goalie coach,” Urban said. “I played with guys four years older. If they had a top game and the coach didn’t let me go in, I’d play with the guys three years older, and if not, then my year.”
Although they committed to ASU from thousands of miles away, Urban and Baran weren’t strangers. They spent time together on Slovakia’s U18 national team at the 2022-23 IIHF World Juniors in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Slovakia finished sixth.
Now in Tempe, the two live and train together, and have quickly become inseparable.
“We are pretty close,” Urban said. “We do almost everything together, grab lunch, dinner. We have exactly the same schedule in school.”
They even have the same sense of humor, even if nobody around them understands their jokes. One such memory stands out.
“The yoga class,” Urban said. “Richie and I were dying there. The teacher was just looking at me and Richie. We felt so bad, we were totally red, sweating because we were dying laughing.”
This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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