Currently in his fifth season, the father of Slovenian NHL star Anze Kopitar led the team to a 7th-place finish at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games – the best result in hockey history for Slovenia or previously Yugoslavia in a top-level event. Slovenia made it to an Olympic ice hockey tournament for the first time as an independent nation after beating higher-ranked Belarus, Denmark as well as Ukraine in the qualification event in Vojens, Denmark, in February 2013.

Under Kopitar the team also won the World Championship Division I tournaments in 2012 and 2014 to earn promotion to the top division but also suffered relegation from the elite group in 2011, 2013 and 2015.

Slovenia was relegated in Ostrava after starting the preliminary round with six consecutive losses. The 1-0 win over Denmark in the last game on Monday didn’t change the fate.

The Slovenian national team will have to battle for promotion next year at the 2016 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A under a new head coach.