Hungary complicates ice hockey WCh qualification

Hungary lost on penalties to South Korea Monday night in the Budapest qualification tournament for to the Top Division of the 2013 Ice Hockey World Championship. The defeat makes clinching the first or second qualifying spot even more difficult.

Following a good start to the tournament (defeating Great Britain 4-2), the Hungarian men’s national team began their match against Korea well and were leading 2-0 in the 4th minute already. What is more, it was 3-0 in the 14th minute.

In the second period, Korea pulled one back but Hungary restored the three-goal lead within a minute (4-1). The match looked easy for Hungary but the Koreans did not give up and the third period proved to be a nightmare for Hungary with the quick-moving opponents scoring three goals to tie the game 4-all by the 50th minute.

The remaining 10 minutes produced no goals and neither did the 5-minute extra time, thus, the game came to be decided in a penalty shoot-out. In that, Korea proved to be better 2-1 to win the game and disappoint the over-9,000-strong home crowd in the Papp László Sports Arena.

The ‘Man of the Match’ award was presented to Korean-Canadian player Radunske Brock by the Korean ambassador to Hungary, Gwan-Pyo Nam. He was among those witnessing Korea’s first ever win against Hungary in men’s ice-hockey.

Hungary needs to improve and must beat all - all but one of - the remaining opponents (Kazakhstan, Italy and Japan)  to qualify for the Top Division tournament.