The second day of competition had another four matches, three which were close, one not so much. Estonia & Slovenia played their first games of the event, both coming away with wins. Hungary had a big scoring game, while the home crowd was again disappointed after going down to Netherlands.
First up was Slovenia against Austria, and although Austria are ranked above Slovenia (18 & 26 respectively), it was the Slovenians who were victorious. They proved a superior opponent for Austria, in both technical skill and physical strength. With only one goal scored in the first 45 minutes, the end the game proved extremely busy for the match secretariat when 7 goals were scored in the space of 6 minutes. Austria had their chance at the end of the game with a powerplay, but two short-handed goals for Slovenia closed the match and extended the winning score for Slovenia out to 7-3.
The match between Hungary & Great Britain was one-way traffic with the inexperienced Brits having no answers for the tough Hungarians. Great Britain is a young team whose main aim is to gain experience to take them forward to the next qualification event in 2018. Csaba Bondor (3+1), Krisztian Toth (3+1), Tamas Hoffmann (2+3) & Ivan Hoka (2+3) were the standouts for Hungary. Despite the final score of 20-0, Rian McDonald played a strong game in the British goal, making 30 saves in the two periods he was in the net.
Estonia won 5-3 against Spain in a match where although the Estonians didn´t really dominate, the Spaniards could also never really get close enough to win. At the last Men´s U19 WFC qualifications, these teams played a thrilling 11-10 match to end the tournament, and like today, it was Estonia who was the victor. In 2015, they qualified to the final round and went on to finish 12th at the WFC. The Spaniards will be disappointed as this was surely the match they had to win to give themselves a real chance at qualifying.
The home crowd were vocal in support of their team, but so too were the Dutch fans. For not so many people they made a lot of noise. The game was very close and was a typical match of the under 19 age group with the players trying to go at full speed with their feet, but their stick skills not keeping up at the same pace. Half the match had been played before either team found the net, and it was the Dutch who were successful. The Italians started the final period perfectly, scoring after just 40 seconds, and with the scores even again the match tightened further. Netherlands went ahead with 10 mins to play and when Jelle van Schagen scored short-handed just seconds later they were able to close out the match to win 4-1.
For all of the match results & statistics visit the IFF Event page. All of the matches are being streamed live and replays of the games can be watched on IFF YouTube Channel 1 and photos can be viewed on IFF Flickr.
