Great Britain 3 – Poland 0 (1-0, 2-0, 0-0)
And then it was down to the last game. Italy had claimed one of the advancement spots and the Brits had the inside track on the second spot. For them, nothing had changed since the morning, they still needed a point. Italy’s win had eliminated Poland but the Poles could help out their Ukrainian neighbours by beating GB or at least taking the game to overtime.
But instead, Britain won the game outright, 3-0. Captain Robert Dowd led the offence, figuring in on all of the scoring in the game with a goal and two helpers.
“We knew we only needed one point but we didn’t want to come with that defensive mentality, we wanted to win this game and we built all tournament to play our best hockey at the end,” said Dowd. “We didn’t have a very long pre-tournament get-together – we only had three days and no pre-tournament games, so we had to build as the tournament went on and I think that’s what we did.”
Late in the first period, Dowd’s shot off the rush was kicked aside by Polish goaltender Tomas Fucik but Josh Waller was in the right place to convert the rebound. As the game approached its midpoint, it was another rebound goal to make it 2-0. This time it was Joseph Hazeldine with the initial shot and Dowd who put the loose puck upstairs. And with five minutes left in the middle frame, Dowd and Waller off the rush set up Ollie Betteridge with a spinaround shot from the point that beat Fucik between the wickets.
What was missing from the Polish game?
“Goals, that’s the easy answer,” said Polish forward Krzysztof Macias. “Nobody’s going to look back and see what style of game we played and nobody’s going to look at the video. They’re going to see the score and we lost 3-0. In those key moments, they were more experienced and they were better than us.”
Although GB had the more dangerous chances in the game, Poland actually held a 40-31 edge in shots, including 18-3 in the third period. Ben Bowns, however, stopped everything directed his way to record the shutout.
“He’s been fantastic since he first came to this national team,” Dowd said of the British goalie. “He changes games for us. When we go to the top pool, both goalies Jackson (Whistle) and Bownsy keep us in those big games and in this group, they keep our leads and keep us right in the hunt.”
As the minutes wound down and the game well in control, the British faithful known as the “Barmy Army” knew that promotion and first place were both well in hand and chanted continuously. When the clock reached zero, the British players poured off the bench, threw their gloves and sticks in the air and joined them.
AloJapan.com