Things got tighter on Day 3 of the IIHF World Championship Division I Group A in Bolzano with three border clashes, all won by the teams who entered the day lower in the standings. The result is that all six teams are now within three points of each other, and most still having a realistic chance of advancing. Hungary and Slovenia are tied at the top with six points and at the other end are Korea and Romania with three.
Hungary 1 – Romania 2
In an absolute stunner to begin the day, previously-winless Romania edged previously-unbeaten Hungary to compact the standings a bit. The game was scoreless after 40 minutes and despite being heavily-favoured, Hungary only held a 16-15 edge in shots. However, the Hungarians turned up the pressure with several high-danger chances early in the third period.
But against the run of play, it was Romania that opened the scoring with 10:31 remaining in regulation time, with Balasz Peter ripping a shot from the top of the circle over Bence Balizs’ blocker. Hungary then went back to the attack and tied it with 5:20 to go when Zeteny Hadobas’ shot was deflected out of mid air by Janos Hari and past Zoltan Toke.
“It was a rollercoaster,” Peter said about the third period. “For a long time we were up 1-0 and I think everybody believed we could win 1-0, but when they scored, the biggest thing is that we didn’t give up like we did the last two games.”
With just under a minute to play, Otto Sandor Szekely carried the puck in from the right wing, cut across the front of the net on his forehand and, in close, took a shot that Balisz got a piece of and dribbled across the goal line.
“That was crazy!” exclaimed Romanian captain Roberto Gliga, who drew the primary assist on the winning goal. “To be honest, we weren’t really expecting that but we tried our luck and it was an unbelievable feeling. Even the goal scorer, he couldn’t believe it – I could see on his face.”
Said Gliga: “We’ve taken baby steps. In the first game there were a few glimpses where we played well, and then against Slovenia we had almost two periods where we were in the game, and now we’ve taken the next step where we played the whole game well.”
Japan 4 – Korea 3
In another tight game between regional rivals, three times Korea took the lead and three times Japan answered. The Japanese didn’t take their first lead until the last seven minutes but that was enough to secure the win and leap-frog Korea in the…
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