The Slovakia men's national ice hockey team is the national ice hockey team of Slovakia and is controlled by the Slovak Ice Hockey Federation. A successor to the Czechoslovakia national team, it is one of the most successful national ice hockey teams in the world. The team's general manager is Miroslav Šatan and their head coach is Vladimír Országh.
Slovakia has won four medals at the World Championships, including a gold medal in 2002 in Sweden and a bronze medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The Czechoslovakia men's national ice hockey team was the national ice hockey team of Czechoslovakia, and competed from 1920 until 1992. The successor to the Bohemia national ice hockey team, which was a European power prior to World War I, the Czechoslovak national team first appeared at the 1920 Summer Olympics, two years after the creation of the state. In the 1940s, they established themselves as the best team in Europe, becoming the first team from the continent to win two World Championships (1947 and 1949). After the arrival of the Soviet Union on the international hockey scene in the 1950s, the Czechoslovaks regularly fought Sweden and Canada for silver and bronze medals, and sometimes beat the Soviets. In total, they won the gold medal six times.
Due to the split of the country Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the team was replaced in 1993 with the Czech and the Slovak national teams. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) recognized the Czech national team as a successor of Czechoslovakia national team and kept it in the top group, while the Slovak national team was entered into the lowest level, Pool C, winning promotion in successive years to join the elite division in 1996.
In men's international ice hockey, the Big Six is a group comprising the six national teams that have dominated play throughout the history of international ice hockey, especially since the 1950s. It has traditionally been composed of the North American countries of Canada and the United States and four European countries: Czechia, Finland, Russia, and Sweden. During the Cold War and for two years afterwards, the Soviet Union/CIS and Czechoslovakia held the places of Russia and Czechia, respectively, within the group. The four European members are sometimes referred to as the "European Big Four" or "Big Four", especially to distinguish them from the North American teams.
As of 2025, out of the 264 Ice Hockey World Championships medals awarded by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), 234 have been won by the Big Six teams. Since 1954, only ten medals have been won by teams outside the Big Six (four by Slovakia, four by Switzerland, and one each by Germany and Latvia). Of the 75 Olympic ice hockey medals awarded, 67 have been won by a Big Six team.