Royal Belgian Ice Hockey Federation

CHARLEROI - Today, Friday, July 28, was marked by alternating wins and losses for the Belgian teams at the European Championships Inline Hockey in Charleroi. 

 

Team SEN Men played two games today. At 1 p.m. there was the face-off against Poland. It became an extremely exciting game where both teams were evenly matched. Towards the end of the first period, Team Poland opened the score. Just a few minutes later, Loïc Dury manages the equalizer through Eliot Sallendre. In the second period, the Belgians take the lead, Toon De Schepper passes to Kenneth Pittoors who nets the puck. The Polish go into a bitter chase, but our boys hold them off. Just before the end buzzer, Jorre Blomme puts the icing on the cake via an assist from Pittoors. Final score 3-1.

 

"This is very nice," responds coach Kristof Van Looy. "Glad we were able to accomplish this. It is not easy after three heavy defeats to keep the boys motivated to keep performing at the highest level. Level difference between the country teams is obvious here. Every team needs that particular game in the tournament that makes the difference, and that has happened here now. Tonight, we play against Sweden and the boys are even more motivated now. The team is growing. We have a young team. After the third match, after a short preparation and some tinkering with the lines, we now have a very balanced team on the rink."

 

Some 20 years ago, Van Looy himself was on the rink at the World Inline Hockey Championships in Germany. Clearly, the sport has evolved tremendously. "In the past, you couldn't tell a difference if a hockey player was playing ice hockey or inline hockey. Now, however, you do. Inline hockey has changed completely, especially tactically and technically then."

 

The Belgians were also on a roll in the second game against the Swedes. In a genuine thriller, they always stayed one point ahead of the Swedes until the closing minutes. Then our boys widened the gap and clocked off with a nice 7-3 score.

 

"We learned a lot from the previous three tough matches," said Team Captain Thomas De Smit. "Today we played as a real team. Everyone did their thing and it worked. The last match against Sweden was really on the edge. Very exciting suddenly because that lead was almost given away since everyone wanted to do too much again and then you just don't perform your task properly anymore. Fortunately, we recovered and really did dominate in the last minutes."

 

Team U19 Women also came into action twice today. The girls faced Namibia who defeated them 15-0. In the second game against Great Britain, the girls narrowly lost 3-5. 

 

Team U17 Men played against Ireland today. A game that evolved evenly until the end of the match. The scoreboard reported a 1-1 score for a long time, but our boys lost focus and the Irish took advantage of this to make it 1-5 in no time.

 

 

BEL vs. POL: 3-1

 

BEL vs. NAM: 0-15

 

BEL vs. ILR: 1-5