Following Saturday's defeat to Israel in the Ice Hockey Division IIb tournament currently underway in Granada, Spain, the Luxembourg Lions were up against the hosts and tournament favourites on Sunday.
In the evening game, Spain, who had beaten North Korea 15-1 the previous day, were clearly the favourites going into the game.
But what did Team Luxembourg do? they went into to the game with a huge fighting spirit and determination. In the beginning of the game, Spain tried to push hard, but most of their attacks dried up thanks to Luxembourg's well organised and disciplined defence. Spain got a lot of shots in, but Luxembourg managed to keep the net clean for almost 30 minutes. It was almost possible to sense how everyone in the IGLOO arena were wondering what was going on.
At 28:08, the Spanish winger Oriol Rubio broke on a breakaway from the left side and scored the first goal against Luxembourg. But the Lions did not give up and they kept playing hard and gained momentum. Thierry Beran got a chance to be face-to-face with the Spanish goalie, but Ander Alcaine manage to put his stick in front of the puck and deflected it over the goal. It took another 9 minutes before Spain managed to score their second goal by Pablo Puyuelo.
After this, Luxembourg got some momentum again. A few minutes after that, Marcus Eriksson got the puck at his feet from behind of the net, moved the puck to his back-hand and soon numerous Luxembourgish fans were celebrating a goal when only one minute was left of the second period. This gave everyone more hope that the Lions really might be able to surprise Spain. Unfortunately, this feeling was not to last long. Already in the same minute, and just 2 seconds before the end of the period, Gaston Gonzales scored the third goal for Spain and maybe this was a bit of a back-breaker for Team Luxembourg.
Apart from Claude Mossong’s breakaway, in the third period the Lions could not any longer find the same spirit as they had before and Spain then showed what happens when you are playing against a good team: they scored seven goals in the last period.
This was a sign for Luxembourg that they really can challenge every team in the tournament if they just trust themselves and keep playing with discipline. They need to take the positive things from this game and use them in the last three games. The most important games for them in the tournament are still ahead.
On Monday there was no game but the team practiced in the evening. Their next game is on Tuesday at 16:30 against New Zealand who won both of their games so far (5-1 against Mexico and 5-2 against Israel).
