Great start: Lithuanian ice hockey players started the championship in Vilnius with a refreshing victory | Sports

2.1 thousand fans flocked to the Twinsbet Arena, swapping a warm Saturday evening for a contest in cooler surroundings.

After the president of the Lithuanian Ice Hockey Federation Dainis Zubr and the mayor of Vilnius Valdas Benkunskas announced the start of the championship and the Lithuanian national anthem sounded, our national team started work, which will consist of a total of five matches in the tournament.

The Lithuanians, led by Ron Pasco, were considered clear favorites not only because they had won all four confrontations with the Spaniards that had been played up to that point.

Last year, the Lithuanian national team went down to the third division in terms of capacity, and the Spaniards went up there for the first time, winning the fourth level tournament.

However, at the beginning of the match, the Spanish team, without hockey stars, organized several dangerous attacks, which were eliminated by Mantas Armalis.

Having only gained the advantage of one player, the Lithuanians attacked the opponent’s goal, organizing a real assault, but the goal had to wait.

The first goal of the tournament for Lithuania was scored at the beginning of the second half by Tadas Kumeliauskas, who masterfully handled the puck near the Spanish goal, who joined the national team from this year’s Lithuanian champion Elektrėnai “Airwell-Energijos” team.

The Spaniards had a good chance to equalize the result, but again M. Armalis represented a one-on-one confrontation with the Spanish striker, and then it was time for the Lithuanian national team.

Paulius Gintautas stuck his stick after Ugnius Čiž’s excellent pass and doubled the lead. It was the 12th national team goal of P. Gintauto, who played in the Norwegian club “Sparta” last season.

Although the Spaniards did not calm down and organized three attacks, at the end of the third period, Laisvydas Kudrevičius from the 7bet Hockey Punks club received the puck while he was near the goal, turned around and disarmed the Spanish goalkeeper with a shot from the post.

“We won!” shouted the fans who stood up and congratulated our national team with the victory.

T.Kumeliauskas, the author of the first goal, was recognized as the best player of the match in the Lithuanian national team.

It was the second match of the tournament. In the first match, the Chinese national team beat the Netherlands 3-0.

Ukraine and Estonia will also play on Saturday – the ice hockey players of our country will meet the Estonians on Sunday, when the match starts again at 4:00 p.m.

Estonia’s best achievement is the bronze medal won in Kaunas in 2018 in the third largest championship. By the way, Lithuanians won the gold medals in the IB division that year.

Performances of the Lithuanian national team since 2012.

Year	Level of competition	Place	Place in the world
2012	IB	5	27
2013	IB	5	27
2014	IB	3	25
2015	IB	3	25
2016	IB	3	25
2017	IB	3	25
2018	IB	1	23
2019	IA	6	22
2022	IA	3	19
2023	IA	6	22
2024	IB	?	?