Vladimir Nardin: Honored Triumph

The Russian team became the winner of the World Hockey Championship, held on the ice arenas of Helsinki and Stockholm. In the final, our compatriots defeated the Slovakian national team with a score of 6: 2.

As part of the Russian team, Alexander Semin (twice), Alexander Perezhogin, Alexei Tereshchenko, Pavel Datsyuk and Evgeny Malkin distinguished themselves as part of the Russian team.

It is curious that with a similar account, Russia won the semifinals, where it previously met with one of the owners of the tournament, and applicants for victory in it, the Finnish national team. By the way, having lost to the Russians, the Finnish team resigned the authority of the world champion.

In the quarterfinals, Russian hockey players also demonstrated a convincing game, however, they were able to squeeze Norway only in the third period. The meeting ended with a score of 5: 2 in favor of Russians.

And in general, the victory of the Russian national team at the 2012 World Cup can be called absolutely deserved: during the competition, she won all 10 matches, including meetings of the group stage.

True, the team of Zinetula Bilyaletdinov did not have a chance to converge in this tournament with representatives of North America. The national teams of Canada and the USA fell into another group, and then flew out together after matches in the quarterfinals. There, Canadians lost to Slovakia, and the Americans - Finland.

The best player in the tournament was recognized by Russian striker Evgeny Malkin. By the way, Malkin became the absolute winner of the tournament in a dispute of scorers, he abandoned the largest number of goals (11) and the largest number of points according to the “goal+pass” system (11+8).

Malkin also entered the symbolic national team of the World Cup, in which, in addition to him, the goalkeeper Yan Latso (Slovakia), the defenders of Zdeno Hara (Slovakia), Ilya Nikulin (Russia), the attacking Patrick Tresen (Norway), Henrik Zetterberg (Sweden) turned out to be.

The performance of the Russian team at the World Cup, and especially at its final stage, was closely monitored by the first persons of the country.

In particular, as Interfax notes, the Kremlin’s press service reported that President Vladimir Putin watched the final match on TV: “Vladimir Putin was leaning for our TV team and watched the final match from beginning to end, like the majority games of the Russian national team at the World Cup,” the Kremlin press service said. It is also reported that at the end of the World Cup final on the phone, he congratulated the head coach of the national team Zinetul Bilyaletdinov and greeted hockey players through him.

In addition, through his account on Twitter, he congratulated everyone on the victory of the national team at the World Cup Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

The world national team became the world's champion for the fourth time in its history, and taking into account the victories of the USSR team, the 26th time.