Several of the teams participating in the 2018 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A assembled their teams to play during the November international break.

At the Euro Ice Hockey Challenge Tournament in Budapest Poland was already known as the tournament winner after two days beating host Hungary 4-1 and Japan 3-2.

Krystian Dziubinski opened the scoring for Poland in the first period and when Jesse Dudas tied the game for Hungary 98 seconds into the second period, Alex Szczechura reacted with his goal 50 seconds later and Aron Chmielewski made it 3-1 before the intermission and before Marcin Kolusz added the fourth goal early in the third period.

Szczechura, Pawel Dronia and Kacper Guzik scored for the Poles in the win against a Japanese team that fought back with Ryo Hashimoto’s two goals. With the tournament win secured, the Poles lost the last game to Italy 4-3.

Japan, which opposed to the other teams plays in the Division I Group B, experienced a good start under new head coach Yuji Iwamoto. Two goals within a span of 62 seconds during the middle frame from Makuru Furuhashi set up a 2-1 upset win against Italy on the opening day and after recovering from the tight loss to Poland, the Japanese beat host Hungary 4-3 in shootout on Sunday evening. Hungary dominated the game with 43-18 shots on goal and held the lead during most of the game until Hiromichi Terao tied the game at three with 3:09 left in regulation time. Kenta Takagi scored the shootout-winner for Japan, which thanks to the win finished in second place before Hungary and Italy. Attila Pavuk, Istvan Bartalis and Tamas Pozsgai scored the goals for Hungary for a temporary 3-2 lead after two periods.

Hungary finished in third place thanks to a 5-2 win on Saturday against Italy. Michele Marchetti opened the scoring for the Italians at 7:04 but three-and-a-half minutes later with Marchetti in the penalty box Balint Magosi tied it up for the Hungarians and 46 seconds later they gained the lead with an Andrew Sarauer goal.

Luca Frigo tied the game 25 seconds into the middle frame but the Hungarians decided the game with three unanswered third-period goals from Magosi, Kevin Wehrs and Csanad Erdely.

23-year-old Furuhashi, who’s just in his second season with the Japanese men’s national team, was the tournament’s scoring leader with five points (3+2). Polish forward Patryk Wronka had four points (0+4).

At France’s new national ice hockey centre in Cergy-Pontoise near Paris, Latvia won a competitive tournament ahead of neighbouring country Belarus, Slovenia and host France.

The first day was already key for the tournament win when the Latvians beat Belarus 7-5. Five different players scored for Latvia including Maris Bicevskis and Rodrigo Abols with a pair of goals. The Latvians had a good start and established a 3-0 lead after 25 minutes of play but yet had to battle hard. Belarus came back with two goals in a span of 40 seconds in the middle frame before the Latvians added two more markers toward the end of the period for a 5-2 lead. The maroon-and-white team continued with victories against Slovenia (4-1) and France (3-1) to win the tournament.

Belarus came back after the loss to take second place with wins against France (3-2 OT) and Slovenia (5-3) and had the tournament’s scoring leader with Artur Gavrus (1+4).

Slovenia was the only Division I team in the tournament and finished it in third place getting their only win against France when Rok Ticar scored in overtime while the French lost all games including two in overtime. The Slovenes had a strong game with a 47-37 shot-on-goal advantage. France enjoyed a 1-0 lead from a Damien Fleury goal after the first period but markers from Robert Sabolic and Anze Kuralt in the middle frame turned the game into a different direction. The French tied it up with a power-play goal 70 seconds into the third period but Ticar scored the game-winner 44 seconds into overtime.