Throughout the course of ice hockey history in Czechoslovakia, many Slovak players became eligible to play for the Czechoslovak national team.

Among those who were able to achieve this was Ladislav Troják; A native of Košice who left for Prague in 1934 to play for the LTC Praha, which was at those times considered to be the best ice hockey team in the country.

Czechoslovakia and its successor states are rated as being among the leading nations on the international scene, thanks to their triumphs in the Winter Olympic Games and the World Championships.

Within only a few years of independent existence as a young nation, it would mark its biggest triumph ever by winning the world championships in Sweden in 2002.

[5] As of July 2017, a total of 76 outfield players and four goaltenders with Slovak citizenship have played at least one game in the National Hockey League.