Hockey players of the Turkmen «Galkan» were the first to reach the finals at the international tournament taking place in Ashgabat, the main trophy of which is being contested by 10 teams from Asia and Europe, divided into two groups. The wards of Andrey Makarov and Meylis Kuliyev achieved this success ahead of schedule, defeating the «Feniks» team from Uzbekistan today in the 4th round match - 9:1 (3:0, 4:0, 2:1).

From the first seconds of the meeting, eight-time champion Turkmenistan unleashed a barrage of attacks on the opponent’s goal, preventing him from leaving his zone. And only the skill of the goalkeeper of the visiting team during the first six minutes did not allow the home team to open the scoring.

The playing advantage of the Turkmen hockey players was so great that even after the removal of one of their defenders it was difficult to understand: who is playing in the minority? Having remained for 2 minutes with four players against five opponent players, «Galkan» organized a quick attack on the left side, which was followed by a magnificent pass to Pehat Atekayev, and he, left alone in front of the goal, opened the scoring with an accurate throw.

As subsequent events showed, Perhat Atekayev was especially on fire that day. As if in training, he managed to pass to the goal, throw shots from different distances, and go one-on-one with the goalkeeper. And therefore it seemed completely unsurprising that the first five goals that flew into the goal of the Uzbek team fell to Perhat Atekayev. This is already the second pentatric at the current tournament. The first goal was scored a day earlier by the «Feniks» team forward Artyom Varganov, who also hit the goal of the «Bahrain Ice Hockey Club» from Bahrain five times.

In addition to P. Atekayev, Erkin Kakabayev scored a double for «Galkan» (28^th and 41^st minutes) and Baymyrat Baymyradov (39^th) and Muhammetyar Nuryyev (54^th) scored once each. The Uzbek club was able to «break up» the score only in the last minute of the game thanks to the persistence of Daniel Kogan.

Having won their fourth victory in a row, «Galkan» scored 12 points and secured first place in Group «A» ahead of schedule.

The opponent of «Galkan» in the final will be determined on the 19^th of April on the final day of competition in group «B» in which the «ADIHIC-Kazan» team from the Republic of Tatarstan of the Russian Federation won an important victory in the fight for first place today, beating the Belarusian «Volat» - 6:3 (3:1, 1:2, 2:0). For the winners, Adel Avzalov scored a hat-trick (1^st, 31^st and 42^nd minutes) and Aydar Miftahov (3^rd), Nasser Sobhy (13^th) and Artur Zaripov (48^th) scored once each. For the losers, Eduard Gryn scored a double (19^th and 29^th), and Nikita Trubitsin scored another goal (33).