Gangneung, Korea, January 21, 2024: Although there is a festive mood around the Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024, a defeat is still a defeat - and still hurts for the losing team.
This certainly applied to Kazakhstan’s men’s 3-on-3 ice hockey team on Sunday as they went down 9-8 to Austria in a preliminary round game at the Gangneung Hockey Centre.
This narrow defeat meant their win-loss record dropped to 1-1, following their 18-8 victory over Poland the previous day.
Kazakhstan and Austria were neck and neck in the first two periods, which ended 4-4 and 8-8, but the Europeans scored the only goal of the third period to win the game 9-8.
“It was a very hard game and maybe a couple of unlucky goals into our net. We did our best,” said Kazakhstan defenseman Arman Tolen.
Asked about why the goals dried up in the third period, the 15-year-old from Astana said: “Maybe we didn’t do enough shots. We need to do more shots but we didn’t do that.”
Despite the defeat, Tolen still believes Kazakhstan are strong enough to get a place on the podium.
“Our team is really good,” he added. “We have the best players from Kazakhstan and a couple of players from the U.S.”
The players from the United States include Tolen himself, who studies at Cleveland, Ohio.
“We came here on January 16 to practice and to play games, and before that we had a training camp for two weeks,” he added.
Adapting from full-size hockey to 3-on-3, plus a goaltender, is one of the keys to succeeding here in Gangneung, where the arena is divided into two rinks and the spectators can enjoy two action-packed games at the same time.
“It is small size, really fast hockey and a lot of shots; it’s hard - but we will play,” Tolen added.
The aim of all athletes here at Gangwon 2024 is to go on and represent their country at the Olympic Winter Games – and Tolen is no different.
“It would be a dream for the next generation – a really good dream. This is a good goal to win this Olympic Games,” he added.
