Russia Under-18 wins the Sergejs Zoltoks Memorial 2011

25 Aug 2011 | Henrik Lundqvist

Sergejs Zoltoks died in 2004 and every year Latvia honors his memory with a tournament. This year Russia U18 won the tournament that also included the U20 teams of Latvia, Belarus and Norway.

The Russian team that consisted of two years younger players than the other teams still showed which country is the better at ice hockey. The tournament was won after victories in the first games, 7-1 against Norway and 5-2 against Latvia.

It was close to a Russian win also in their last game. Russia had a 2-1 lead after 28:23 but Belarus (Denis Dalidovich) tied it at 58:29 and then Maxim Perfeyevets score the 3-2 winner for the Belarusians at 64:17. The result was still enough for Russia to win the tournament.

Belarus beat Latvia 5-2 in their first game and then lost 4-3 to Norway in overtime to capture the second place.

The home team Latvia ended up third after beating Norway 6-3 in the last game of the tournament.

Latvia's Toms Andersons was awarded tournament MVP and received a Latvian national team jersey #33 from Sergejs Zoltoks's family.

Norway's Sondre Olden was named best forward and Ivan Nalimov from Russia best goalie. Best defenseman was Vladislav Lemachko from Belarus.

With 4 goals and 1 assist Vyacheslav Osnovin of Russia was the top scorer of the tournament.