Italy won the men’s Jønk EuroHockey Indoor Championship II-B title and promotion up to the top division in emphatic style with a 13-0 win over Lithuania.
Needing a draw to assure gold, they wasted little time in getting on track with Marcello Succi scoring twice in the first three minutes and, from there, they were always in the ascendancy.
Giovanni Faggian and Gabriel Biocca made it 4-0 at half-time and they piled on the goals in the second half; Faggian and Boccia both ended the game with four goals each with Succi scoring a hat trick.
It means they will return to the top tier for the first time since 2010 as they produced the perfect tournament with five wins out of five, netting 62 times along the way.
Reflecting on the success, captain Mattis Amorosini said: “First of all, I’m really proud of my team, staff and players, did a fantastic job.
“We came to Oslo with the objective to promote; we knew it was difficult because we were the second seed.
“The first games helped us to make step forward. Especially against Greece we experienced a difficult game regarding the score. I think that game helped us to stay focused in the crucial and negative moments.
“The second day it went fantastically. We won the first game with confidence and we were focused on the most important match [against Ukraine].
“As a captain of the team, I told my guys that the promotion was not just the objective but it’s everyone’s dream and we need to fight for reach that.
“We started very well and then we kept calm during the difficult moments. We managed to score goals in our down moments.
“When the referee blew the whistle, everybody released the pressure and started to celebrate, someone cried I think. Everybody knew already that it was not mathematically done but definitely it was the most important match of the tournament.
“Then today we approached the game with the right spirit, confidence and focus. We scored goals and we gained the mathematical promotion to Division A. It’s an historic moment for Italy hockey. We are back in elite indoor for the first time since 2010.
“Now we have the opportunity to show the Italian skills at the big stage. We have a young team, three teenagers and a couple more that played their first tournament. We will work for and fight to stay in the A division!”
Ukraine secured second place when they got the better of Greece 8-2, their fourth win of the weekend. Vitalii Shevchuck was the architect in chief with five of the goals, bringing his tournament total to 15.
They had trailed to an Elias Diringer goal but three goals in quick succession saw Ukraine pull away.
The final game saw the Scandinavian battle with Sweden prevailing over Norway 4-2 with two second half goals from Jan-Olof Rydin seeing the visitors take the win.
Men’s EuroHockey Indoor Championship II-B (Oslo, Norway) – Final rankings
- Italy – promoted for 2028
- Ukraine
- Lithuania
- Greece
- Sweden
- Norway
