After victories over Italy (1:0) and Latvia (4:3) Dave Lewis’ team was in with a good chance of winning the Euro Ice Hockey Challenge, meeting Japan with high spirits. Only one change was made to the line-up, with Alexander Borodulya, from Yunost, taking over from Neman’s Maxim Samakov in goal, within the first few minutes.
The Belarusians played in the majority for the first five minutes of the match. Sadly, Dmitry Ambrozheichik received two penalty minutes for an incorrect attack, which slightly reduced the attacking impulse of the squad, who went on the defence more often. Nevertheless, in the 16th minute, the captain of the Belarusian team showed his mastery against defender Takafumi Yamashita, sending the puck into the Japanese goal’s near corner. In the second period, one minute before the whistle, Pavel Boayrchuk increased our advantage to 2:0.
During the last 20 minutes of the game, Stanislav Lopachuk took the final score to 3:0, pushing us into the lead and leading to the team winning the tournament in Liepaja.
Our squad will enter the next stage of the World Championship in mid-December, finishing with the Arosa Challenge Cup in Switzerland from December 18th to 19th.
The matches at the international tournament in Latvia were the first stage for our national ice hockey team in the 80th World Ice Hockey Championship, which is to be hosted by Moscow and St. Petersburg from May 6th-22nd, 2016.
By Igor Leshin
