We went to the first evening game of the tournament - Great Britain v China. I was expecting a reasonably close game - GB are 20th in the World Rankings, while China are 26th. However, it turned into a bit of a blow out, with GB racking up a 10-1 victory.
GB came onto the ice in attack mode and peppered the China goal with shots. We were sat behind the goal, and the netminder was kept very busy. He did well to only concede two in the first period, making a number of fine reflex saves.
The second period was quite dull for us because we were sat behind the GB goal and saw barely any action. Meanwhile at the other end of the rink, GB scored five goals. GB scored again at our end in the third period before China finally got a goal. I was feeling a bit sorry for them by that point so cheered when it went in. It's a long way to travel from China to Wales to then get tonked.
It's rare I'm in a crowd that's chanting "We want ten! We want ten!" Even rarer that the crowd gets its wish. But the tenth goal went in to a loud cheer. We then had the amusement of a broken scoreboard reading GB 0-1 China, because it wouldn't display a two digit score.
It was a very clean game, with a handful of players serving two minute penalties in the sin bin, for fairly innocuous fouls. There were no silly fights or roughing, which meant both teams just got on with the hockey. GB used the boards well, sending the puck round to players on the other side of the ice to switch the play with devastating effect. China had some good players but they played more as individuals rather than as a team and could rarely get on the offensive.
Great Britain are playing Serbia and Romania in their next two qualifiers over the weekend with the aim of making it through to the next round of qualifying.
Every time I go to watch ice hockey I remember how much I enjoy it. Even watching the techs wielding power tools and driving big vehicles as part of the playing surface maintenance is fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment