LUCKY PUSHES

SPORTS

In ten years, the Finns gave the Karjala Cup into the wrong hands only once - in the 97th neighbor (naturally, not to us, but to the Swedes). With the Russian team in any of its variants, they dealt with from year to year - methodically and rigorously. Last year the thing...

In ten years, the Finns gave the Karjala Cup into the wrong hands only once - in the 97th neighbor (naturally, not to us, but to the Swedes). With the Russian team in any of its variants, they dealt with from year to year - methodically and rigorously. Last year it came to shootouts, but ended the same way. It seems that only Vyacheslav Bykov did not speak about the “curse removal” out of ten (!) in a row lost matches. The new head coach generally tries "not to fill his head with unnecessary information." Yes, and there is no time, because it still has a problematic CSKA, which the recent returnee from Switzerland mainly dealt with between the first and second stages of the Eurotour.

Bykov overcame the debut Czech stage famously. Now he has not even taken the Kazan "untouchables", giving the leaders a break. In general, he did not attract any of the solidly overplayed, in addition to the forwards Alexander Kharitonov and Vladimir Antipov. In addition to them, not a single hockey player scored more than two goals, five had a pass in the “Matches for the national team” column, Yevgeny Varlamov from Magnitogorsk was appointed captain, who did not even have a dozen games for the national team. After several unplanned losses, it turned out that there was not a single simulated combination in the attacking line.

Two 23-year-old mighty debutants - goalkeeper Vasily Koshechkin from Togliatti and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl forward Evgeny Artyukhin (for two 200 kilograms and four meters without five centimeters) - were simply killed in the first match of the hosts. Koshechkin saved 27 shots and did not raise an eyebrow, earning the right to one more game. "Flying pig" (wording by Vladimir Yurzinov Sr.) Artyukhin, without any ulterior motive, knocked out the leader of the hosts, Jari Viuhkola, in the 7th minute, as a result of which he ended his Finnish epic in the 7th minute. The great and the terrible in Bykov's experiment were dangerously close, but everything worked out - the first and last puck was ours, the half-forgotten Peter Happy from Mytishchi sent the decisive one into the gates of the invincible Finns with a "shovel".

Built into the rock near the Central Station, the Hartwall Arena has never seen anything like it. The head coach of the hosts, a sophisticated tactician Erkka Westerlund, called the game of the Russian team "one of the best in recent years."

After a desperate felling and strong-willed 5:4 over the Swedes (losing 0:2 and 2:3) with the already traditional goal of Schastlivy with an uncomfortable hand and the leadership of the third and fourth links, only the Czech team could stop ours. But the best striker of the tournament, Lucky, also “made her happy”, equalizing the score two minutes before the siren, Koshechkin repelled two unthinkable bullets, and the winning flourish remained with 20-year-old Magnitogorsk Nikolai Kulemin - 3:2. The sixth victory in a row, the Karjala Cup went to Moscow for the first time, in the overall standings of the Eurotour, the Russians broke away from their nearest rival by nine (!) points, which has never happened.

If you don’t understand something, then I hasten to reassure you - the experts also failed to give intelligible explanations. In a month, at the Moscow International, we will figure out together what the “winner of the Finns” is doing with the national team.

However, Vyacheslav Bykov certainly does not fill his head with such trifles.