The Ice Blacks lost their opening game tonight to Serbia by a score of 6-4. Serbia came into the game as the heavy favourites being the team relegated down from Division I in 2010. The only match between the two countries at the Senior Men’s level was played in 2004 in Lithuania with the Serbians dominating that game to the tune of 22-2.

The Ice Blacks were determined to erase that loss and right the register. Before the game we had talked about relaxing our nerves going into our first game of the tournament. Serbia had been upset by Belgium in the first game yesterday and were not happy. We knew they’d come out flying but the lack of us having played yesterday with the withdrawl of the North Koreans and not yet being ready for the pace of the Serbs saw us undone early on.

We had a positive start to the game gaining control of the opening face off, getting deep in the Serb zone and narrowly missing our first shooting opportunity. The Sebs countered and were the benificiaries of a lucky bounce in the neutral zone going in on NZ goal keeper Zak Nothling and scoring the first goal just 22 seconds into the game. The Serbians kept the pressure up and by the seven mnute mark had made the score 3-0.