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Champions Cup host GC Zurich get victory — 01.10.2014GC Zurich won its first ever Champions Cup game after a very tough fight against Finnish champions Happee Jyväskylä, hanging on to win with the score of 6-5.
After the boxplay GC found its way into the game, but it was still Happee who got the first lead of the match after a counter-attack and a brilliant one-timer from Veli-Matti Hynynen. However, the Swiss team didn´t lose its confidence and fought back hard. It was the new Swedish-import superstar Kim Nilsson who equalized the score after a beautiful backdoor pass by Zürcher. And when last years Swiss League topscorer Nico Scalvinoni put his name on the scoreboard the Swiss team gained the upperhand. With the end of the first period Happee received a two minute penalty to give GC a good start to the second period. More ball possession for Happee but GC scores The second period started with the benefit of the powerplay to the Swiss and it was again Scalvinoni assisted by Zürcher who scored. Obviously Happee wasn´t willing to give in. As if they switched the light on, fighting spirit, intensity and control of the ball was back with the Finnish champions. But GC defended very well, blocked a lot of shots and had a strong goalkeeper. And even if Happee had more ball possession during the second period, the home team had quite a lot fast breakaways and counter-attacks. I In 35th minute it was defender Alain Kaiser who scored from inside the box to a 4-1 lead for GC. This was also the game´s score after the second period. Happee almost came back The last period started as the second ended: Happee tried really hard to score, but GC played a very compact defense and goalkeeper Jonas Wittwer was also playing at his best and showed some big saves. And on the other side of the field the superfast counter-attacks were always dangerous, yet both teams failed to score during the first ten minutes of the last period. It was no surprise that GC succeeded first. It was youngster Joel Rüegger – with some help from Happee keeper Kosonen – who brought the 5-1 lead. With this goal the drought was broken and within seconds Happee drew new hope from Peter Kotitlainen´s 2-5. But just another couple of seconds later Nilsson scored his second goal of the game to re-establish the four goal lead for GC. But still Happee wasn´t beaten. Within two minutes Happee managed to score three times to bring the score to 5-6. This was the moment for GC´s timeout. GC Coach Luan Misini got the right message and his team played the last five minutes down to a very important 6-5 victory. Best Players: (Photos: Michael Peter/André Burri) |
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The game between Champions Cup Host GC Zurich and the Finnish champions Happee Jyväskylä was important in this tough group. The game started as it was expected: very fast with a high intensity and some tough duels. And when GC captain