MINSK, 31 March (BelTA) – The Belarusian president’s team took the lead in the final series of the 19th season of the Republican Hockey League (RHL), BelTA has learned.
The team of the head of state defeated the Minsk Oblast team 6-3 (3-2, 1-1, 2-0) in the first game in the Olympic Arena in Minsk on 31 March.
The rivals have known each other well for a long time, and from the very first minutes, the game took on a back-and-forth, attacking style. Neither team managed to score until midway through the first period, but then the spectators saw five goals. For the presidential team, goals were scored by Yaroslav Chupris, Maksim Parfeyevets, and Nikolai Lukashenko. Their opponents responded with goals by Ilya Kaznadei and Roman Kaskov. Shortly after play resumed, Viktor Kucherenko tied the game, but then the tournament’s leading scorer Andrei Kostitsyn put the defending champions back in front: 4-3. The third period saw just as intense a battle, yet the players from the president’s team proved stronger, with Artyom Antonenko and Artyom Karkotsky adding two more goals.
The winners’ goalkeeper Stepan Goryachevskikh and his colleague Yevgeny Yushchenko were named the best players of today’s game. The second game of the best-of-three series is scheduled for 4 April. In the semifinals, the president’s team defeated the Brest Oblast team (3–1) while their opponents in the final series beat the Gomel Oblast team (5–3). The Brest Oblast team won the bronze medals in this tournament, defeating the Gomel Oblast team in the third-place game by a narrow margin of 5-4.
Andrei Kostitsyn currently leads the scoring list with 19 points (5 goals and 14 assists).
In the preliminary round the head of state’s ice hockey team defeated the Mogilev Oblast team (9-3), the Gomel Oblast team (12-2), the Grodno Oblast team (10-5), and the Vitebsk Oblast team (12-6) while two other matches ended in ties with the same score 5-5 against the Brest Oblast and Minsk Oblast teams.
Last season the president’s team won the tournament for the 16th time, defeating the Minsk Oblast team in the final series. The Gomel Oblast and Minsk Oblast teams each have one title.
The organizers of the amateur hockey tournament are the Presidential Sports Club, the Ministry of Sports, and the Minsk City Executive Committee.
