| One Polish goal out of six in the Romanian goal (Photo: pzhl.pl) |
The Polish national team covered the sheets, because it lost in extra time to the elite hosts in their second match, but apart from that, they won their other matches in regular time, and in their last match on Friday, they defeated Romania 6.2 and returned to the best after 2002 – where it was revealed It was later reported as a runner-up.
Another promotion was decided in the last match of the championship between the British and the Italians, who also fell from the top: the latter needed to win in regular time, and the hosts also had to lose in overtime. The Brits led three times, and the Italians equalized all three times before half-time, but there was no reply to Brett Perlini’s second goal of the day – the final result that sealed a 5-3 home win and promotion. As the tournament winners were decided by Cady Nelson just two minutes after the end of the first half, the Italian scored the empty goal before the end.
The issue of relegation was also sensational. After the last round, Lithuania’s victory over South Korea in regular time would have meant that the national teams would have stayed in the position and Romania would have been deposited, but the Asians scored the winning goal. With a man’s advantage of 33 seconds before the end of the 60 minutes – thus Lithuania was relegated to Division 1/B.
Section 1/A-VB, Great Britain
Round 1
Poland– Lithuania 7-0
Romania-Italy 2-6
South Korea-Great Britain 0-4
Round 2
LithuaniaRomania 2-3
Great Britain-Poland 5-4 – In overtime
Italy-South Korea 6-1
Round 3
Romania-South Korea 2-5
Italy-Poland 2-4
Great Britain– Lithuania 3-0
Round 4
South Korea-Poland 0-7
LithuaniaItaly 4-6
Great Britain-Romania 7-0
Round 5
Poland-Romania 6-2
LithuaniaSouth Korea 1-2
Italy-Great Britain 3-5
The final result: 1. Great Britain 14 points, 2. Poland 13, 3. Italy 9, South Korea 6, 4. Romania 3, 5. Lithuania 0
Great Britain and Poland advanced, and Lithuania fell.
From Division 1/B, Japan, which won all five matches, advanced to Lithuania’s place, as Serbia was eliminated.
