The Turkmen «Galkan» emerged victorious at the international ice hockey tournament, which was held in Ashgabat with the participation of ten teams from Asia and Europe. The hockey club of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Turkmenistan achieved this success by defeating the Russian team «ADIHIC-Kazan» from the Republic of Tatarstan in the final match today – 4:2 (1:1, 0:1, 3:0).
Both teams passed through the group stage of the tournament without defeat, winning the right to compete for the main trophy of the competition in the decisive match.
The final became a real highlight of the tournament with all the unexpected collisions in sports.
Both teams started the game at high speed, creating many dangerous chances near each other's goal. But for a long time, it was not possible to open the scoring due to the excellent play of goalkeepers Rahman Myradov («Galkan») and Ayrat Valliulin («ADIHIC-Kazan»). And yet, in the 9th minute, the spectators who filled the stands of the 10,000-seat arena to capacity saw the first puck in the goal. It was thrown by one of our best strikers, Perhat Atekayev, who turned out to be the most agile on the heel.
The guests from the world-renowned hockey school in Kazan made a lot of effort to win back, and 53 seconds before the end of the first period, Adel Avzalov restored the balance - 1:1.
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In the second 20 minutes, the Russians took the lead after a goal from Nasser Subhi, and the opponents went into the second break with the score 2:1 in favour of the «ADIHIC-Kazan» team.
Eight-time champion Turkmenistan had the final 20 minutes to turn the tide of the game. And the wards of Andrei Makarov and Meylis Kuliyev coped with this perfectly in the final period. In the 41st minute, Perhat Atekayev ran away from the defenders, went one-on-one with the goalkeeper and leveled the situation – 2:2. After another two minutes, Gurbanmyrat Tanniyev, falling on his heel, sent the puck into an unprotected corner of the goal and brought «Galkan» ahead - 3:2. And Novruz Bayhanov put the winning point in the 51st minute with a wonderful shot into the top nine.
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In the last minutes of the game, in order to avoid defeat, the coaches of the «ADIHIC-Kazan» team replaced the goalkeeper with a sixth field player. But the Turkmen hockey players withstood the onslaught of the opponent and maintained the winning score of 4:2.
At the closing ceremony of the competition, the «Galkan» hockey players were awarded the Cup and gold medals, and the «ADIHIC-Kazan» (Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation) and «Volat» (Belarus) teams received silver and bronze medals, respectively.
The judges who served the tournament and its best players were also awarded special prizes. They were recognized as: goalkeeper Yaroslav Lagun («Volat»), defender Musa Annasaparov («Galkan») and forward Aidar Miftahov («ADIHIC-Kazan»).
The international ice hockey tournament was held from the 15th to 20th of April at two ice arenas of the Sports Complex for Winter Sports with the participation of club teams from Bahrain, Belarus, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Russia, Uzbekistan, Türkiye and Turkmenistan.
