In day two action from the IIHF Division 2B World Championship in Mexico City, the New Zealand Ice Blacks have hit a bump on the road to gold after losing 5-3 to Israel in what was a closely fought battle throughout.
Israel controlled the flow of the game early on and showed that perhaps their 6-3 win over Iceland yesterday wasn’t an upset as initially thought. Evgeni Kozhevnikov opened the scoring eight minutes into the game to put New Zealand behind 1-0.
Following on from that goal, the Ice Blacks struggled to get through the neutral zone to mount their own attacks with several icing penalties called against them, hemming the New Zealand side in their own zone.
Six minutes later New Zealand forward Frazer Ellis drew an interference penalty against Israel’s Itay Ben Tov, with a second infraction by Israel moments later giving the Ice Blacks a two-man advantage for 21 seconds.
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