Three victories at the “World Cup”, Romania remains in the same echelon

The Romanian national team defeated the Japanese team with a score of 4-2 (2-1, 1-0, 1-1), on Saturday, in its last match at the World Hockey Championship, Division I, Group A, from Bolzano (Italy ), thus fulfilling its objective and remaining in the same value scale.
The debut of the tricolors in the competition was difficult, with two clear failures, 1-6 against Italy and 1-6 against Slovenia, after which three victories followed, 2-1 against Hungary, 3-2 against South Korea and 4-2 against Japan.
Roberto Gliga (04:26), Evgheni Skacikov (18:35), Szilard Rokaly (34:15) and Matias Haaranen (59:03) scored for the Romanian team, coached by Dave McQueen. The Japanese goals were scored by Sota Isogai (18:17) and Yu Sato (56:21).
In the last eight direct games, Romania has beaten Japan only twice, including Saturday’s match.
The teams of Hungary and Slovenia have promoted to the elite echelon of the Ice Hockey World Championship, after Hungary prevailed with the score of 2-1 in the direct match, held on Saturday evening, in Bolzano (Italy), in Division I, Group A. Kristof Papp (57:09) scored the winning goal.
Hungary took the first place in the ranking, with 11 points, followed by three teams with 9 points each, Slovenia, Italy and Romania (the tie was made following the direct results), Japan, 4 points, South Korea, 3 points.
Some of the players and technical staff of Corona were part of the Romanian team: head coach Dave MacQueen, team captain Robert Gliga, goalkeeper Zoltan Toke, defender Huba Bors, forwards Albert Zagidullin, Balazs Gajdó and Matyas Kovacs and physiotherapist Adrian Vescan.