Finland - Belarus Winter Olympic Hockey Game

Yesterday night the opening round of the Men's preliminary ice-hockey round began with Finland playing against Belarus in the first match of Group C.

In the first period Belarus has the first penalty by Aleksandr Makritski for hooking. Shortly after the penalty Finland's Olli Jokinen scored a goal assisted by Saku Koivu and Teemu Selanne. Later in the game Belarus's Aleksandr Ryadinski got a penalty for hooking which gave Finland another Power-Play which resulted in a goal by Niklas Hagman assisted by Mikko Koivu and Joni Pitkanen. The game is now 2-o to Finland after the first period ended.

In the second period Belarus quickly shows that they haven't given up by scoring a goal closing the gap to 1 goal. The goal was scored by Sergei Kostitsyn and was assisted by Sergei Demagin. Finland's Lasse Kukkonen got a penalty for holding and after that Belarus got a penalty because there were too many players on the ice. Sami Salo got a penalty at 14:01 game time and gives Belarus a power-play but they can't make use of it because Finland keeps putting pressure on the attackers. Towards the end of the second period Niklas Hagman scores a goal assisted by Mikko Koivu which puts Finland in a 2 goal lead again. Current score is 3-1 to Finland.

In the final period(3rd period) Finland shows it's potential by immediately scoring a goal after the puck was dropped. The goal was scored by Valtteri Filppula assisted by Mikko Koivu which puts Finland in a 3 goal lead. After that Belarus plays hard but they played too hard that they got 3 penalties in a row. In the final stages of the game Finland's Jarkko Ruutu scores the final goal of the game and he is assisted by Lasse Kukkonen and Niko Kapanen. Finland played a brilliant first game. The final score is 5-1 to Finland.