Japan and Kazakhstan prove strength, amateur debutants thrill

Japan's men and Kazakhstan's women ice hockey teams both repeated their victory in the Winter Asiad while five newcomers gained experiences.

Japan edged out the Asian top-ranked Kazakhstan 3-2 by a goal with less than nine minutes to go here on Thursday, which led to their second consecutive title following the feat in the last edition of Asian Winter Games in Aomori, Japan in 2003.

"I was really satisfied with our performance in the match against Kazakhstan," said Toshiyuki Sakai, coach of Japan. "That was the key victory."

"I had told my players that our target here was nothing but to win the gold medal before we came here," he added.

The Kazakhstan team, which was beaten to the second by Japan 2-7 in Aomori, finished again with a silver medal.

However, the Kazakhstan women team stopped the Japanese from a double-win by a narrow win of 2-1 in the final round.

Kohichi Satoh, the coach of the Japanese team expressed his disappointment by saying "we produced several chances in the third period but failed to score" while Sergey Solovyev considered it "lucky" for them to win.

China, the top-ranked team in Asia and the title favorite, suffered straight losses to Japan and Kazakhstan, taking a disappointing bronze.

"We did not achieve the goal of winning the gold here," said Jorma Siitarien, who coached China from last August. But he was still confident toward the World Championships in Canada in middle April.

"We have two months to prepare," said Siitarien. "That would be enough for us to beat the Kazaks in Canada."

Unlike the powerhouses which strived for the medals, the amateur teams' targets here were to concede as few goals as possible.

The 6th Winter Asiad attracted a record 11 teams, featuring five debutants, including the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and Macao, China.

Most of those amateur teams had bitter days by suffering big losses. Thailand was smashed by Kazakhstan 52-1, producing the largest goal difference here.

Source: Xinhua