Val Pusteria grabs Coppa Italia

Val Pusteria Wolves finally won its first trophy ever, clearly beating title holder Renon in the Coppa Italia final, played at Bolzano Palaonda. According to this year's format, the first three teams in Serie A before the beginning of the last round robin - Val Pusteria, Renon and Bolzano - play a final four along with Serie A2 leader Gherdeina. The team from Val Gardena was allowed to sign some extra imports to compensate it's technical gap compared to Serie A teams. Gherdeina opted for all four Appiano imports, Peter Campbell, Jonathan Coleman, Steven Kaye and Jaroslav Spelda, but the huge gap existing between the two league was manifested in the semifinal against Val Pusteria, easily won 8-2 by the Brunico team, with an embarrassing first own goal following a mess between Spelda and Coleman. In the other semifinal, the classic Renon-Bolzano, the Coppa Italia holders won 5-2 thanks to goalie Frederic Cloutier's stellar performance and despite the absence of top scorer Dan Tudin (broken finger), further exploiting the flu decimated Bolzano roster. Renon lost another key player, Luca Ansoldi, suspended for the final after a fight with Danny Irmen.
The final was a replay of last year's, when Renon won 2-1 but, this time a fantastic game by Robert Sirianni and Joe Cullen gave no mercy for opponents. Val Pusteria won 6-1, celebrating its first ever trophy with almost 2000 fans. Italo-Canadian Robert Sirianni was deservedly nominated tournament MVP, while the All Star Team included Frederic Cloutier (Renon) as goalie, Mika Lehtinen (Bolzano) and Matt Kelly (Val Pusteria) as defenders and Robert Sirianni (Val Pusteria), Joe Jensen (Val Pusteria) and Ryan Watson (Renon) as forwards.

 

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