Turkmen team is successfully qualified for the third division of the World Hockey Championship

The national team of Turkmenistan has won a confident victory in the qualifying tournament of the third division of the World Ice Hockey Championship, all matches of which took place in the Ice Arena “Dzetra” in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina). 

Our national team and the hosts of the tournament reached the deciding match with a 100% indicator – each having scored 6 points in the asset due to the victories over the outsiders - the teams of the UAE and Qatar. 

The task was extremely simple, that is the winner of the game would secure its first place in the qualifying tournament and the only possibility to play in the World Championship division. 

In the first period, the Turkmen players acted energetically like in the previous two matches, being in the number of shots on the goal more than three times ahead of opponents. But in the most important indicator, the use of possibilities, the hosts of the competition were luckier in the beginning. 

Already in the fourth minute the team of Bosnia and Herzegovina opened the scoring in the match, and two minutes later scored another goal. Our hockey players, being for the first time in the course of tournament in the overtaking position, tried to reduce the gap, which was achieved in the 8th minute by Dovlet Soyunov, who could take a numerical advantage in two seconds. 

However, in the middle of a period the opponents again increased the gap to two goals, bringing the score to 1:3. And however hard our national team tried to come from goals down in the first period, the Bosnian team’s goalkeeper successfully returned all pucks. 

In the second period the Turkmen team, having managed to use several opportunities at the goal of opponents, turned the game. Within seven minutes the score was tied. Ahmet Gurbanov scored two goals, the first of which was a short-handed goal. 

In the 31st minute of the game, the Turkmen players got ahead owing to the accurate shot of Amangeldy Aganiyazov. And during another play with one less player on the ice our team ... had managed to achieve again success! The fifth puck was shot by Dmitriy Savin. 

Arslan Geldimyradov made an advantage even more confident in the 38th minute, having used a numerical advantage. Thus, our hockey players had cardinally changed the course of the game during one period, going to the second break with a solid advantage of score 6:3. 

And in the final match seven more unanswered pucks were shot into the demoralized Bosnian team’s goal. In the beginning, Pavel Barkovskiy secured the score 7:3, and later three numerical advantages were used by our players Evald Gaer, Ishan Veleyev and Dovlet Soyunov. 

Then the coach of Bosnia and Herzegovina changed the goalkeeper, but it did not help. The team of opponents was completely defeated by shots of Aleksadr Vahovskiy, Pavel Barkovskiy and Begench Dovletmyradov. The score 13:3 was the confident victory in the match and a decisive point in the tournament as a whole. 

The competitions ended in the 100% result (9 points out of 9 possible), and an impressive difference of scored and conceded goals 41 - 5. In addition, Turkmen hockey players became the leaders of the competition on individual rating as well. The list of top scorers in the tournament included Dowlet Soyunov, who scored six goals, and team captain Ahmet Gurbanov. Ahmet was also the best in the system “goal + pass” where he had 12 points. 

Thus, the national team of Turkmenistan made reached the third division of the World Hockey Championship, where it will play in 2019, having made an initial but confident step towards the hard-to-reach world hockey elite.