Before the last day of play in Sofia, Netherlands and China were undefeated. The Dutch team won against Australia – 6:1, Chinese Taipei – 8:1, Bulgaria – 5:1 and Belgium – 4:2 (from 0:2 after the first period). China, back in U18 IIHF competition for the first time since 2019, started with a 5:1 win over the host nation and continued with victories against Australia – 5:2, Belgium – 6:2 and Chinese Taipei – 8:4. The real final of the event was an entertaining battle of two teams playing fast tempo game with a lot of physical encounters on the borderline of the rules and many times over it, which resulted in a total of 78 penalty minutes.
In the first period Netherlands had five straight penalties and played 8:08 minutes shorthanded. The first three kills were successful, but on the fourth try China scored 69 seconds before the end of the period. Team’s captain Zihao Liu had his fourth tally of the tournament with assists from Peng Sun and Fanke Meng.
“I felt that we were the better team, but we just didn’t have the opportunity to show that because we were killing so many penalties. And then when we finally were able to get our feet grounded on the ice and stayed out of the box, we were able to be consistent, to roll our lines. The guys who are used to play together to be back on the ice with each other instead of having mixed lines all the time”, explained Paul Vincent, the head coach of Netherlands.
„There was no surprise from team Netherlands for me. I know Paul very well. He is a tactician. We go back a long way. Both teams have a lot of speed and used it. There were a lot of penalties, but this is the nowadays hockey and we have to adjust. Our guys are very emotional and sometimes you can’t control it”, said Daniel John Reja, the head coach of China.
From the start of the second period the roles were reversed. Now China was in penalties’ sequence – three in just 1:54 and…
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