"Blue and Yellow" beat Lithuania and rose to the second-ranking division of the World Championship the following year.
The Ukrainian national ice hockey team defeated the Lithuanian team in the final match tour World Championship 2024 in Division IB.
The decisive match for first place in the division and promotion in class ended with the triumph of the “blue-yellows” with a score of 4:1.
Dmitry Khristich’s team won the first period with a minimal advantage – Daniil scored Trakht.
In the second 20 minutes, the Ukrainians increased their advantage – Trakht scored a double.
And in the third period, our team scored again – Andrei Deniskin made an accurate shot. After that, the Lithuanians pulled one goal back through the efforts of Eimantas Noreika, but the Ukrainians had the last word in this match – Alexander Peresunko scored into the opponent’s empty net.
Thus, the Ukrainian team finished at the 2024 World Cup in Division IB, which took place in Lithuania, with five wins in five matches. Previously, our team defeatedEstonia (8:0), beat the Netherlands (4:0), destroyed China ( 9:0) and beat Spain (6:1).
Consequently, the “blue-yellows” with 15 points became the winners of Division IB, ahead of three points for Lithuania. This brought the Ukrainians a ticket to the second-ranking division (IA) of the World Championship next year. The last time our team performed at this level was back in 2017.
Note that this year the Ukrainian team played for the fifth time in a row in the third strongest division (IB) of the world hockey championship. Last year, the “blue-yellows” until the very end were in contention for promotion to Division IA, but in the decisive match for promotion they lost to Japan.