For the second day of the tournament and also gold medal game head coach Rob Pallin went with Zoltán Hetényi in net with Miklós Rajna on the bench, not in the line-up was István Bartalis and Frank Banham who are dealing with injuries.
The first twenty minutes of the game were hectic for both teams as they were flying up and down the ice. Fehérvár had a power play in the middle of teh period that they wer not able to convert. One thing that was noticble was that Rob Pallin looks to sending out four forwards and one blue liner on each power play. He did this against Ljublana the night before. Fehérvár got on the board with a power play late in the first period when Ladislav Sikorcin blasted a one timer from the slot past the Graz goalie Sebastian Dahm from a pass from Chris Francis for the 1-0
The first half of the second period was all Fehérvár, infact in felt like they were on a power play despite no one being sent to the box. At the half way point of the game Fehérvár was on their third powerplay of the game. As the period went on Graz continued to collect the penalty minutes but the PK unit stood tall. Sikorcin struck again on the power play as he took a pass from Sarauer down low and lifted over the goalie for the 2-0 lead. With Gergő Nagy sitting in the penalty box for hooking Graz tied the game up when a Morten Paulson shot hit the post, then off of Hetényis back and tricked over the goal line, to cut the score to 2-1. As much as the first half of the game had very little penalties the last ten minutes of the period one team was always on the power play.
In the opening minutes of the third period both teams picked up penalties, Fehérvár was caught with too many men on the ice. At 47:22 Graz tied it up when Philip de Simone skated in on a breakaway and slipped the puck between Hetényi’s legs. As the minutes slipped off the clock the penalties kept on coming on both sides but neither team was able to score.
The game remained locked at 2-2 for the rest of regulation as Fehérvár had a late power play opportunity but were not able to score.
In overtime this was a chance for most people to see the new overtime rules which is 4 on 4 for the first four minutes which is followed by 3 on 3 for three minutes or if someone scores first.
In overtime neither team could play by the rules as both teams picked up penalties. The overtime looked like a pickup game of hockey as neither team was able to put it past the keeper but there were plenty of chances, after the seven minutes of overtime, on came the shootout.
In the shoot out both Volán shooters missed where as both Graz players put the puck past Hetényi for the tournament win with Fornataro scoring the winner.
COACHES' CORNER
Rob Pallin- We had the puck for fifty minutes but we didn’t put it into the back of the net, we let them hang around, after the second period the shots were 38 to 10 and we had a crucial mistake on the second goal, out D was caught sleeping. If you have the puck for over 50 minutes you should win. Over all I was satisfied we are a skilled and physical team, I really wanted to get three points.
Todd Bjorkstrand-The season starts Friday, we spent a lot of time in our own end, and it was difficult to create offense for us tonight but sometimes this is what happens, in the end we ended up winning.
PLAYERS VIEW
Dániel Kóger- I don’t know how it looked like from the outside but I thought we played well, we played hard, in the third period they were able to get back into the game. I thought we played better than Graz for most of the game, I just feel bad that we were not able to get the win.
Ladislav Sikorcin-We started out great and we played well throughout the game, we were up 2-0 but they scored a shorthanded goal, unfortunately they scored again, we had a number of other chances, we should have won today. We need to figure out what was missing today, maybe it's only luck as we had 51 shots on net which is a lot, we just need to be more accurate.
Skalica-Ljubljana 1-0
In the bronze medal match, Skalica took on Olimpija Ljubljana, for Skalica the fans in attendance had a saw a familiar face as former Dunaújváros and national team goalie Peter Sevela started for the Slovak side. The game was scoreless until right before the midway point when René Skoliak scored to make it 1-0 for Skalica. The Slovak club looked like the stronger team from start to finish but Sevela still played great as he pitched a shut and kept the race close for being the number one goalie for the club.
Results
Szeptember 5.
15:30 HK 36 Skalica - MM Graz99ers 1-2
19:00 Fehérvár AV19 - Olimpija Ljubljana 5-2
Szeptember 6.
15:00 HK 36 Skalica - Olimpija Ljubljana 1-0
18:00 Fehérvár AV19 - MM Graz99ers 2-3