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Johnson: Persistent Slovaks finally bounced from tourney: Ill-timed penalty seals fate

George Johnson, Calgary Herald, January 2, 2012

EDMONTON – Harder to kill than an unsubstantiated rumour. Or a vampire at night. Or a particularly crafty New York City tenement cockroach.

All tournament long, they kept bouncing back like one of those blow-up vinyl floor kiddies’ punching bags. Knock ’em down and … Boiiiiiing!

Right back at ya.

In the autopsy analysis, though, Slovak stick wilted under Finnish slick.

A deluge of penalties put them down yet one more time. And, at last, kept them there.

“Obviously we felt like we played really good this tournament,” said Slovak sparkplug Tomas Jurko, an 8-5 quarter-final defeat ending the improbable run. “Like I said in lots of interviews, we felt like we had a great team and we felt we could do more in this tournament. One game didn’t go well for us.

“It hard to take.

“But we lost. That’s the way it is.”

The moment that officially sealed the Slovaks’ fate occurred 11:19 into the third period. They had whittled Finland’s lead to 6-4 on an early goal from Martin Daloga, when standout forward Matus Chovan was tagged for one of those was-he-turning-before-contact five-minute major boarding penalties, Miro Aaltonen the unfortunate victim mashed into the boards.

Once more Ernest Bokros’s boys tried valiantly to rally, but power-play lightning strikes by Joonas Donski and Teemu Pulkkinen during the five-minute sentence sealed their fate.

“It MIGHT be two minutes,” sighed Jurko. “I’m not saying it wasn’t a penalty. But five minutes at that time of the game … it’s kind of hard for us. I don’t want to comment on the referee, it’s his job.

“For us, though, it was really huge. It slowed us down. We were coming back. You never know? We might score four goals in four minutes like we did (Saturday) night.

“I felt if we’re (playing) even, we’re the better team.”

While not skirting the issue, Chovan was pleading innocence.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” he said, using teammate Adam Janosic as his translator. “When I went to do it, the guy just turned around. It was a big call. I take full responsibility for it.

“But it shouldn’t be five minutes, for sure.”

“Definitely, it was the turning point,” claimed Bokros, also via interpreter. “Interesting that eight penalties were called by one referee.

“I don’t want to comment on that (boarding) call. When I see the video, I will react. Interesting that when we were down by one goal, we’d get a penalty. When there was a difference of three goals, no penalties called.”

As much as that one incident cost the Slovaks dearly, a second-period meltdown was every bit as responsible for their undoing, the Finns scoring a staggering four times in a 6:12 span.

Mikael Granlund had the first two of the blitz. Markus Granlund snared the third, slipping a shot through Simboch’s wickets, the grateful beneficiary of a dazzling solo dash from his brother. Leftovers never tasted so yummy.

The carnage ended with Alexander Bartsov driving wide down the boards, holding off his opposite number 16, Matej Bene, before cutting in hard to the net. Martin Marincin’s half-hearted little tug certainly wasn’t going to be enough to put Bartsov off stride and he finished the job, long-side. A beauty.

From 2-2 to 6-2, in the time it takes to boil an egg. That’s on you, boys.

Still, the feeling of being cheated resonated around the Slovak camp in the aftermath.

“It’s hard to say,” said Janosik, a bit more diplomatically. “If the guy’s turning to the boards, it’s a split-second, and you’ve still got to finish your check.

“But it was a little stupid from our team, because seriously, we’re a group of guys who battled hard all game. We’ve got to be smarter. At 6-4, the game was close and we were still getting penalties.

“I don’t know … it’s hard to talk about right now.”

In the days ahead, what they accomplished here, and not the tainted way they believe they were forced to exit, will be what the feel-good Slovaks take away with them, wherever they might finish.

“We’re proud. All tournament, we kept being knocked down and kept getting up,” said Jurko.

Until, as so often happens with these hard-to-kill underdogs, they finally ran out of bounce-back Boiiiiiing!

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."