Originally published on Jan. 11, 2019
By Zane Miller
The Blowout Sale is a series that discusses the biggest blowout games in sports history.
On Saturday, September
6th, 2008, the Slovakia women’s national ice hockey team took on the Bulgaria women’s
national ice hockey team in a qualifying match for the upcoming 2010 Winter
Olympics.
While the Games
themselves were held in Vancouver, British Columbia, this qualifier was at the
brand new Liepaja Olympic Center (known locally as “Liepājas Olimpiskais centrs”)
in Liepaja, Latvia, opened just over one month prior to this game taking place.
Slovakia was looking to
make their first Olympic appearance in women’s ice hockey since becoming a
separate country in 1993, however they were coming off of a strong showing in
the IIHF World Championships just five months before this game, finishing
second in their division by just one point and coming in 11th in the tournament
overall.
Bulgaria, on the other
hand, was having their first ever season as a national women’s ice hockey team at
any level of international competition. There were reported to be only about 37
women’s ice hockey players in Bulgaria at the time. With 17 players on the
roster coming into the game, approximately 46 percent of Bulgaria’s population
of women’s ice hockey players were a part of the national team.
Being a new team, the
team had already taken its share of tough losses coming into this game, with a
41-0 loss to Italy the previous Tuesday, a 30-1 loss to Croatia on Wednesday
and a 39-0 loss to the host country of Latvia the day before. However, the team
looked to turn around their fortunes in the final game of the qualification
tournament against Slovakia and hopefully at least get some positive momentum
going into next season with a strong showing.
Slovakia started
19-year-old Monika Kvakova at goaltender, who was making her first career start
after regular starter Zuzana Tomcikova was rested after winning the first two
games of the tournament.
Bulgaria starter Liubomira
Shosheva made her fourth appearance of the qualification. Despite being the
losing goaltender in the three preceding games, she was able to rack up a large
number of saves on the tournament with 143, including an 80-save performance
against Italy in her debut.
The game got underway at 4:30
p.m. local time, and it didn’t take long for Slovakia to get on the board as defensewoman
Iveta Karafiatova scored 57 seconds in, giving the team a 1-0 lead. However,
just 13 seconds later, Slovakia would double their lead as forward Nikola
Gapova scored to make it a 2-0 game. A bit of time passed before forward Petra
Dankova made it a 3-0 lead at the 2:37 mark. At 3:55, Karafiatova earned her
second of the game before forward Martina Velickova got back-to-back goals 27
seconds apart. At the 4:54 mark, Gapova scored her second of the game to make
it a 7-0 Slovakia lead and essentially put the game out of reach five minutes
in.
Forward Janka Velickova
was the first to earn a hat trick at the 11:46 mark of the first period, making
it a 21-0 advantage, with fellow forward Nikoleta Celarova not far behind with
another hat trick completed at the 13:12 mark. Eventually, the first period
came to a close with Slovakia holding a 31-0 lead. Celarova and forward Janka Culikova led the Slovakian offense with
four goals each, with Velickova following with three. Nine other players had
two goals each, while defensewomen Veronika Konecna and Barbora Bremova each tallied
one.
The second period
continued the same trend, with defensewoman Romana Vargova capitalizing on a
power play chance 34 seconds in to get a hat trick (a rarity for a defensive
player), followed by Culikova getting her fifth of the game 22 seconds after. At
1:39, Velickova also got her fifth of the game. 3:01 saw forward Zuzana
Moravcikova earn a hat trick, giving Slovakia a 35-0 lead, while less than a
minute later forward Anna Dzurnakova scored to get a hat trick as well.
Karafiatova got the team’s sixth hat trick and second for a defensewoman at
4:50. Just over a minute later, forward Maria Herichova completed another hat
trick, then Vargova got a hat trick on the power play at the 9:35 mark to make
it 41-0. Velickova had a fifth goal at 10:30 as Slovakia continued to put in
goal after goal for the remainder of the period.
When the dust settled at
the end of the second, Slovakia bumped their advantage up to 55-0. 10 players had
scored hat tricks by the start of the third period, with Culiakov leading the
way with nine goals, followed closely behind by Velickova with seven and Vargova,
Celarova and Gapova with five apiece. Slovakia also registered 92 shots on goal
with one period remaining.
Slovakia kicked off the
scoring in the third 1:21 in, with Vargova getting her sixth of the game, followed
by Velickova getting goals eight and nine back-to-back 16 seconds apart. The
same theme as the first and second continued into the third period, with
Slovakia continuing to score goals like clockwork. Late in the game, Shosheva
was pulled in favor of backup goaltender Kamelia Drazheva with less than three
minutes remaining, with Slovakia holding a 77-0 lead. As the game wound down,
Slovakia was awarded two penalty shots after a pair of Bulgaria delay of game
penalties, which Slovakia converted on both of. Slovakia tacked on three more
goals in the final minutes, with Herichova getting the last goal with 49
seconds remaining. The game also appeared to get rough at the end, with
Dzurnakova and Bulgaria forward Tina Lisichkova each being assessed a match
penalty with 10 seconds remaining. However, it would do little to change the
outcome as Slovakia held on for the 82-0 victory.
Kvakova picked up the
win, however she didn’t have to do much in the victory as Bulgaria was unable
to register a shot on net throughout the game, allowing Kvakova to get the
shutout with 0 goals allowed on 0 shots. Shasheva took the loss, allowing 77
goals on 134 shots, however she was able to make 57 saves for a total of exactly
200 saves in the four game tournament. Drazheva came on in relief, but was
unable to make a save on five shots, as Slovakia had 139 total shots on the
game.
I was unable to find very
many post-game quotes from the players and coaches involved, however a quote
that I did come across was from Slovakia head coach Miroslav Karafiat, who stated,
“We took it
as training.”
Not surprisingly, Bulgaria was not invited to the 2010 Olympics for women’s ice hockey, while Slovakia was invited for the first time in women’s ice hockey. However, in an ironic twist, they were defeated by eventual gold-medalist Canada 18-0 in the first game of the tournament, the biggest blowout game in the history of (non-qualification) Olympic ice hockey and never recovered, eventually losing to China in the seventh-place game.
Link to stats
database: http://stats.iihf.com/Hydra/166/IHW166907_74_4_0.pdf
Watch game clips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhSMv9caq19_ouGCiuVVIEekGVfEyx82p
Other sources:
http://www.espn.com/olympics/news/story?id=3577150
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