GFT 1-3 Ilves FS (Ilves lead 1-0 in the Final series)

Ladies and gentleman I present to you, Still your reigning, defending Finnish Champions, Ilves!

What a perfect start to the best of five series against GFT, the team that finished second in the regular season table, we are in the position where we are the road team and must win away from home and just like the last round against KaDy, we started off with that crucial away victory.

Our MVP for the Play-Off’s has without doubt been Timur Inapshba and it was his ball through to Valtteri Similä that gave us the lead 16.57 into the game, we held on to that lead through into the second half where things just got better, it only took until 22.36 for us to be celebrating again, Similä becoming the assist man this time setting up Juhana Jyrkiäinen for 2-0, we were looking good for the win at this point.

Of course 2-0 is never a scoreline to sit on and wait, so naturally we pressed for a third, and we got it just 2 minutes and 14 seconds after Jyrkiäinen’s goal, Juhana took his turn at assisting as his pass went to Simo Martiskainen who volleyed in for our third, a 3-0 lead now and the game was all but over.

It could have been more, Inapshba got hauled down on his way to goal by Risto Salmi of GFT who was red carded for the challange and Ilves went on the powerplay with 4 minutes to go, we were happy just to see out this victory and keep a clean sheet, but with just 2 seconds left on the clock, GFT spoiled our clean sheet when Teemu Terho scored at 39.58.

We’ve let in just one goal in our last 3 games, this is Championship form, our next game is Today (Saturday) in my old local area of Kaukajärvi, Tampere. Hopefully the Spiral-Halli will be sold out and bouncing!