On September 10, the first ever ISHF official tournament “Liga Pro All-Star Night Cup” took place in Moscow. The tournament was attended by 4 teams from Moscow and Tver: Molotoboizy, Kalininskiy Front, King’s Town and Blue Tigers.
The format of the tournament consisted of 2 semifinal matches, a game for 3rd place and a final.
The opening match was the confrontation between the Kalininskiy Front (Tver) and the Molotoboizy (Moscow). From the first minutes of the match, the Molotoboizy unleashed a flurry of attacks on the Tver team, but the fantastic play of the goaltender of the Kalininskiy Front did not allow the opponents to score. The match was held in a bitter struggle, without a clear advantage for any of the teams, but the results were a fantastic comeback from the Hammers, who made a comeback from 3: 1 and set the final score on the scoreboard – 3: 5.
In the second semifinal match the teams of Kings Town (Moscow) and Blue Tigers (Tver) met.
From the first minutes the game was set at a very dynamic pace: the attacks of the teams followed one after another. The first goal was scored on 6th minute by a Kings Town player. Their player’s aiming shot from long range discouraged the Tigers goalkeeper. But it took the Tver team team only 30 seconds to successfully respond to this goal with a free throw.
Further, the Kings Town team in the second and third periods scored 2 unanswered goals to the Tigers, but the team from Tver made some kind of miracle and scored 2 goals in a few seconds before the end of a match.
The regulation ended in a draw 3: 3 and, according to the short hockey rules, viewers were awaited by post-match penalty shots, in which the Kings Town team was more successful.
In the 3rd place match between the Blue Tigers and Kalininskiy Front teams, the leader changed several times.
In the first period, the Kalininskiy Front came out ahead, but after 30 seconds the Tigers managed to equalize the score (1: 1). In the second period, the leadership passed to the Tigers, but a little later the score became equal again. During the entire match, the teams showed various tactical practices and often changed the pace of the game. At the beginning of the last period, the Kalininskiy Front managed to come out ahead, but towards the end of the period, the Tigers still managed to break the opponent’s defense and scored in the end of the match. The teams were very similar and in a bitter struggle they could not find a winner based on the results of regular time.
For the Blue Tigers, this post-match series of free throws was the second in a row, but, unfortunately for themselves, the team could not resist the onslaught of the opponent and lost the second match in a row following the results of the series of free throws.
In the Final match, two Moscow teams met: Molotoboizy and Kings Town.
Before the start of the match, a symbolic throw-in was taken to mark the final of the first official short hockey tournament.
After a fantastic comeback with a score of 3: 1 in their first match, the Hammers did not sit back in their half, but immediately unleashed a flurry of attacks on King’s Town, thanks to which they scored a goal in the second minute. On the 7th minute, the players of Kings Town managed to firmly establish themselves in the opponent’s zone, and the result of a positional attack was a goal against the Molotoboizy. In turn, the Molotoboizy did not wait long and after a minute and a half they regained the advantage in the score.
At 52 seconds in the second period, the Hammers increased the lead, making the score 3: 1, but Kings Town managed to close the gap within a minute and a half. The hammers returned the score difference very quickly, and the second segment of the match was completed with a score of 4: 2. In the third period, the teams tried to achieve their game goals – one had to reduce the gap in the score, and the second had to play actively in defense. For the entire period, the Kings Town team did not manage to find the keys to the opponent’s defense, and the Molotoboizy scored two more unanswered goals in the second half of the final period. The final score on the scoreboard became 6: 2.
The Molotoboizy became the undisputed winners of the first “Liga Pro All-Star Night Cup” tournament under the auspices of the ISHF.
