Iran Wins First World Championship Ice Hockey Game
In just its second game in IIHF competition, the Iranian men's national hockey team is victorious after beating Singapore 5-2 in IIHF Division IV World Championship action.
This is the first year of the Division IV tournament, held in Kazakhstan for a range of teams mainly playing in World Championship competition for the first time. All six teams have played internationally before, but Iran was the lone team without an official IIHF tournament appearance.
It was a big bounce-back game for Iran, which lost 13-1 to Kyrgyzstan, the host nation, to open the tournament on Thursday. Iran took part in the 2017 Asian Winter Games in 2017, but was disqualified for using ineligible players. They were allowed to keep playing, but the games didn't count in the official standings. Iran went on to beat Indonesia 10-3 in the second game for the team's first win against another international team.
Iran's goal scorers were Jalal Keyhanfar (two), Farzad Houshidari, Maziar Ghobani and Farshad Moghadasi.
It might not be a high-level tournament, but that won't matter for everyone involved in helping Iran win its first IIHF World Championship game ever.
