The dream continues

Cinderellas Slovenia and Austria open the qualification round of Olympic ice hockey tournament looking for the great chance to reach quater-finals, an historic result for both nations. First power play and Slovenia opens the score: Anze Kopitar shot it is central, but Mathias Lange doesn’t secure the puck, slowly getting into the net. Austria has a good reaction, earns two power play and threats Kristan goalie, but Slovenia doubles the score at 11:57 shorthanded: Jan Urbas shot leaves no chances for Lange. Rok Ticar has another chance when teams are at full strength but Lange deflects. On the opposite site stats recorded 10 shots from Austria, but none of these remarkable. In the second period Lange has to stretch his arm to deflect a touch by Jan Urbas and then to rebound a shot by Ales Music after 3 minutes. At 23:21 Sabahudin Kovacevic triples, delivering in Lange net an assist by David Rodman, persistent in recovering a puck in the Austrian defense. Kristan has finally his first difficult saves deflecting with pad a shot by Brian Lebler. An uninspiring Thomas Vanek misses the tap-in with his team on power play and Kristan blocks a shot by Pock passed in the traffic. At 33 Slovenia has an incredible chance to score again but wastes a 3vs1 situation with a wrong last pass by Rodman. Same Slovenian forward misses the net well assisted by Mursak.At 37 Robar serves Ticar with the shot angle opened but forward tries to stop the puck and Lange can use the pad.

Slovenia bench celebrating Kovacevic third goal

In the last period is again Slovenia to have the first scoring chance but Lange shut the door twice to Urbas. Same Urbas lost a puck for Austrian counter-attack but Kristan is reactive on Lebler shot, as well as on a Vanek attempt.For Slovenia, Marcel Rodman shots on Lange from close range. At 57:00 Viveiros decides to pull off Lange looking for the miracle to score three goals in 3 minutes; too much for any team, even more for this Austria. Slovenia thanks, scores fourth goal empty-net with Jan Mursak and flies to quarter finals to face Sweden, a dream for this small and proud nation. Austria is the first team to pack the bags and fly back to Vienna with the knowledge having missed a rendezvous with history

Game is over, Slovenia advances to quarterfinals

Slovenian players obviously celebrate in the restroom and are still in disbelief: Ziga Jeglic: "It is, for sure, the biggest thing we have ever done in the history of Slovenian hockey. To win against Austria, like our biggest rivals, is also a big thing for us. It was a great game and a great day for us. We played exactly how we planned to play from the start to the end. We played our system, we played disciplined and that is the biggest reason today why we won. Now we will try our best against Sweden and who knows, we shall see what happens."

Sabahudin Kovacevic didn’t play last game due to a suspension, come back and scores "We're shocked with our result, but we knew even before that we can play because even last year at the world championship we showed that we can play with them. We would have been happy with one point before the end of the tournament, but right now we're going for the gold medal. Three days ago they said it was the biggest win against Slovakia in Slovenian ice hockey history. Today I think this one is the biggest."

Marcel Rodman: "We are rolling along with great energy in the dressing room and we want to keep it going. As an athlete, when you accomplish something you want to accomplish more, you want to do more. We want to upset Sweden.!”

About the reaction  in Slovenia to the team's success, Rodman said: "I got a text message saying that half of the nation was on vacation to watch the game. It kind of tells you something about our country. We are small and we fight. We stick together when we need to."

Austrian players pass quicky and without much desire to speak

Michael Grabner: "Who knows when we'll get the chance to play at the Olympic Games again so it's definitely a lost opportunity. We still had a lot of fun, but we expected more today."

Goalie Mathias Lange: "Obviously we're really disappointed. This was a once in a lifetime shot and we just couldn't pull the trigger."

Coach Manny Viveiros is objective: We never got a chance to take off in the game. There are no excuses for this, no excuses at all.''

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