|
 |
Belarus is Dream Team of early rounds
By Jody Genessy
Deseret News Olympic specialist
It is no Canada, United States or Czech Republic, that's for sure. But Belarus is the Dream Team of the preliminary round.
The Belarussians roughed up France 3-1 on Monday night at The Peaks Ice Arena to improve its record in the prelims to 2-0. Though each team still has one game to play Wednesday, Belarus has already clinched the final round spot for Group B with four standings points.
Germany and Latvia will play for the Group A entry into the next round of the Olympics, when the NHL stars and best teams will start competing.
Belarus also beat France in the qualifying round robin in Nagano en route to a perfect record in the preliminaries and a spot among the elite eight. Belarus can match its 3-0 record in 1998 with a win over Switzerland on Wednesday.
Now that they've qualified, the Belarussians will concentrate on pulling off an upset and improving on their seventh-place finish in 1998.
"Basically, to qualify was our main goal here," said Belarus defenseman Aleksandr Zhurik. "And this time we want to win a game or two (in the final round)."
Belarus found itself in a little hole early on after France's Maurice Rozenthal scored three and a half minutes into the game. But the French lead was shortlived. Belarus' Andrei Rasolko scored five minutes later, then Vladimir Tsyplakov and Dmitry Pankov added goals in the second and third periods.
Pankov's goal was the clincher, coming with just over two minutes remaining and only moments after Belarus fought off a French power play.
"It was a very tense game. We were so close," Pankov said. "After I scored the goal, I felt I lived up to the expectation."
UKRAINE 5, SWITZERLAND 2: For the second time in three days, Belarus spoiled Ukraine's day. After winning its first-ever Olympic hockey game against the Swiss, Ukraine needed Belarus to lose to have a shot at advancing. Ukraine needed help because Belarus won their match-up 1-0 on Saturday.
Powered by Valentyn Oletsky's two goals, Ukraine did its fair share of spoiling on Monday, too, by upsetting favored Switzerland. Ukraine forced Swiss goalie David Aebischer out of the game after scoring three goals on only 10 shots on the NHL backup from the Colorado Avalanche.
"I'm so disappointed," said Aebischer, whose team was supposed to challenge Belarus for the qualifying spot with him in goal. "We wanted to go further. The whole team is very disappointed."
E-MAIL: jody@desnews.com
|
|
February 12, 2002
|
