Polesie Cup Day 1. Belarus was crushed by Slovenia in Gomel

11 Nov 2011 | Irina Goroshko

Kari Heikkilä held the first match as head coach of Belarus national team. And lost to Slovenia – 0-6. Russia wins against Denmark.

Belarus outshot Slovenia 39-23 but no goals were scored in Andrej Hocevar’s net. Dmitri Milchakov wasn't good in Belarus net. He made four mistakes for 28 minutes and was replaced by Igor Brikun. Brikun was better but he entered the game when it was 0:4. In the third period Belarus team allowed one more goal. Kovacevic scored in power play.

The Belarus team was very disappointed and Pavel Razvadovski scored the own goal in the middle of the 3rd period. The Slovenian team had a delayed penalty. Belarus goaltender Igor Brikun went to his team bench to allow the sixth player to enter the ice. And at that time Razvadovski made a very incorrect assist to Kukushkin behind him and scored the puck in his own empty net.

Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APi11OAQOi8

The Slovenian coach Matjaz Kopitar was happy after the match but didn't think this victory came to his team due to the game advantage of the Slovenian team.

"I can't understand what happened with the Belarus team today – he said at press-conference. – They hand a lot of mistakes and couldn't do anything. I like this win but I remember very well our match in Bratislava in the World Championship when we lost to Belarus and left the elite division. I agree to change this result for that".

The Belarus coach Kari Heikkilä was disappointed: "We had a terrible start. We had good statistics of the shots but did not score while allowing goals. We were crushed in the second period. We will think about the mistakes we made today before the match with Russia that we play tomorrow. I hope it will be another hockey and better match for us".

Russia won Denmark 5:0 in another match in Gomel. Lisin, Abdullin and Tihonov scored in the second period, Sergeev and Pestushko – in the third. Kasutin repulsed 12 shots and didn't have problems in the Russian team net.

The second Russian national team participates in tournament in Gomel. Andrei Nazarov, the head coach of this Russian team, said: "Russia dominated the game but Denmark isn't weak team. We have some difficulties in this game".