The Russian national team lit up at the World Hockey Championship! Thanks to the legendary goal

The Ice Hockey World Championship this year is held without the participation of the Russian team. Our team was removed from the tournament not at all for sports reasons, in an instant, as if “cancelling” its great international history. However, it turned out to be not so easy to completely “erase” the Russian trace from the pages of the hockey encyclopedia.

Expelled from the world championship, Russian hockey players still reminded of themselves. Moreover, thanks to the Finns themselves, hosting the tournament.

At the opening ceremony, thousands of fans saw one of the most beautiful moments in the history of the World Cup – and the Russians could not do without it.

If not for the goalkeeper Barulin, the legendary goal might not have taken place!

The phenomenal goal of the Finnish prodigy

Despite the exclusion of the Russian national team from the number of participants in the 2022 World Cup, our hockey players still managed to get into the tournament in Finland. And not just penetrate, but light up right at the Nokia Arena in Tampere, and even during the opening ceremony!

True, the Russians took part in it in a very specific way. The fact is that during the welcome show organized by the Finns for the guests of the tournament, the fans were shown a special promo, on which our hockey players were captured.

In a video edited specifically for the event, local clip makers included the famous goal of Mikael Granlund against the Russian team. This puck is considered legendary not only in the country of Suomi, but also beyond its borders: some even call this goal one of the most beautiful in the history of the world championships! Not without reason in Finland itself, this episode later even got on stamps.

Mikael Granlund and Konstantin Barulin / Photo: © Martin Rose / Staff / Bongarts / Gettyimages.ru

The Finnish player scored a historic goal against Konstantin Barulin exactly 11 years ago, counting from the opening ceremony of the 2022 World Cup, that is, on May 13, 2011. On this day, Russia and Finland met in the semi-finals of the tournament, and the young Granlund just opened the score in this meeting.

The Finnish hockey player hit Barulin’s gate in a completely unexpected way. The player deftly took the puck away from Kalinin shortly after the throw-in, and then, having driven behind the gate, picked it up on a stick and threw it into the top corner. This trick – “lacrosse” – is considered one of the most difficult in hockey, and only a few manage to perform it at the highest level. Among them was a Finnish child prodigy.

The phenomenal goal of Granlund marked the beginning of the convincing victory of the Finns over the Russians (3:0), thanks to which the team made it to the final, and then won its second trophy in history, defeating Sweden (6:1) in the decisive match. Russia, in that year, was left without medals, losing to the Czechs in the fight for third place, but today we remember the failures of our team with pleasant nostalgia: then at least no one “cancelled” us yet.