The Channel One Cup has been held annually in Russia for a long time. This competition is the second stage of the European hockey tour, in which four leading European teams traditionally take part: Sweden, Russia, Finland and the Czech Republic.
The Euro hockey tour is an official competition, but the attitude of fans of this sport to such an event is not as serious as, for example, to the World Championship and even more so to the Olympic Games. Hockey experts believe that the Euro tour (including the Channel One Cup) is exhibition matches for viewing candidates for the first team for the World Championship. However, it is customary for our hockey players to win the Russian stage, because it is a very decent business to please Russian fans.
In 2015, the Channel One Cup was held in Moscow from December 17th to 20th. The opening match of the tournament took place at the new "Arena of Legends", which can accommodate just over twelve thousand spectators. In the first game the teams of Russia and Sweden met. The wards of Oleg Znark cannot add this meeting to their asset, as the Scandinavians confidently outplayed the Russians with a score of 4 - 1. Despite the fact that the Russian team opened the scoring in the match, the victory for the hosts was not recorded. It is worth noting the general faded play of Russian hockey players with many mistakes.
In the second meeting of the tournament, the Russian national team rehabilitated, beating the Finnish team with a crushing score of 8 - 1. Oleg Znark's charges played this game aggressively and collected from the first minutes, as a result of which, after 12 minutes, four goals were at the Suomi goal. Then the Russians continued their fruitful actions and brought the meeting to a rout.
In the final match of the tournament, the Russian national team had to beat the Czech Republic in the main time in order to take first place in the 2015 Channel One Cup. However, this did not happen. The Russians lost 2 - 4, although they were leading in the course of the second period 2 - 1. The Czechs still managed to seize the initiative in the second dvadtsatiminutka and score three times. In the third period, the Russian hockey players had chances to recoup and even win, but the goalkeeper of the Czech national team Dominik Furch showed himself worthy.
As a result, out of three matches at the 2015 Channel One Cup, the Russian national team won only one victory over the Finnish hockey players, while the national teams of Sweden and the Czech Republic turned out to be stronger. As a result: the Russian team did not take the first place in the tournament, and all other tournament positions cannot be considered as worthy.
