Ice Hockey: Courageous Bulgaria gives China fright before losing

Bulgaria gave China an unexpected fright with its aggressive play in Dunedin yesterday.

China is ranked second and was expected to have an easy win over bottom-placed Bulgaria at the Dunedin Ice Stadium.

But it was forced to muster all its resources to win 6-2.

Goaltender Radosvet Petrov (18) inspired his team-mates in the opening game of the division three under-20 world championships. He anticipated well and was not frightened to spreadeagle himself on the ice to stop shots at goal.

China has dominated games against Bulgaria in the past and has always won by at least 10 goals.

But it was a different story yesterday as the fired-up Bulgarian team took the game to the Chinese and refused to let them settle into any rhythm.

It was the brilliant defence of Petrov that restricted China to one goal in the first of the three periods when the scores were tied 1-1 after Stefan Georgiev scored for Bulgaria.

Petrov, who started playing ice hockey at the age of 8, has been a member of Bulgarian junior teams for the past four years.

He lives in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia and plays in the European league for a team from the Czech Republic.

This is his first visit to New Zealand and he was suffering from jet-lag after the 40-hour flight to New Zealand.

"We had five different flights to get here," he said. "It took a long time."

Petrov is still a pupil at secondary school in Sofia and hopes to progress to the Bulgarian senior team and become a professional player.

China added three more goals in the second period to lead 4-1.

But the aggressive Bulgarian defence did not permit China to extend its advantage and the game ended with Nikita Inzhevatov scoring Bulgaria's second goal in the final minutes.

The most valuable player award for Bulgaria went to defender Teodor Kraynyanov and for China it was defender Wen Chao.

- China: 6 (Zheng Canji (2), Bao Jiachang, Zhang Cheng, Zhu Xiaofeng, Li Ning)
- Bulgaria: 2(Nikita Inzhevatov, Stefan Georgiev).

• Iceland showed why it is the No 1-ranked side in the tournament by beating Turkey 8-0, and it could have been worse had the Turkish goaltender Fikri Atali not had a great performance between the pipes wher ehe faced 70 shots.

Iceland indicated it was prepared to play physically, picking up the majority of the penalties in the match. Iceland captain Olafur Bjornsson (15) picked up a brace of goals in the victory.

-Iceland: 8 (Olafur Bjornsson (2), Gunnar Sigurdsson, Bjorn Sigurdarson, Gunnlauger Gudmundsson, Steindor Ingason, Olafur Olafsson, Sigurdur Reynisson), - Turkey: 0.