The Russian national team, playing in the Soviet “victorious” uniform, lost to the Finns in the decisive match of the second stage of Euro Hockey Tour

The Russian national hockey team lost to Finland in the decisive match of the second stage of Euro Hockey Tour – the First Channel Cup. The match, which took place at the CSKA Arena, ended in overtime with a score of 3: 2 in favor of the Finns. Thus, Finland became the winner of the tournament.

For the Russians, Artem Minulin and Vyacheslav Voinov scored the goals, for the Finns – Valtteri Merel and twice Sakari Manninen.

Note that Russian hockey players played in the uniform of the USSR national team of 1964-1968. It was in this form that the Soviet team won two Olympics.

Recall that during the tournament the Russian national team won three times: Canada (4: 3), Sweden (1: 0) and the Czech Republic (5: 2). At the first stage of the Euro Hockey Tour – the Karjala Cup – the Finnish national team took the second place, and the Russians took the third place.

The head coach of the Russian national team Aleksey Zhamnov said after the match that “the guys were a little upset.” “We wanted to win, we had a chance in overtime with a 4v3 game. We lost for the first time in this tournament and returned to the game twice. It is very difficult to play with Finland, because they show purely defensive hockey and base their game on counterattacks, ”he explained.

Zhamnov noted that the goalkeeper was replaced in overtime “with one message – to win”. “Shootouts are shootouts, but here there is an opportunity. Sergey Fedorov practices this at his club, and we decided to try it. It’s just that in this situation, concentration still affected. With four games in five days, even with rotation, there is still fatigue. I have no complaints about any hockey player for this entire tournament. The guys gave themselves completely, gave themselves in every match. We perfectly understood that we gave them a lot of information, how we want to play, what we will demand from them in the future. The guys tried to do everything. You yourself perfectly understand that in one such fleeting tournament everything can be tried only in games. Which is what we did, ”he concluded.