ROUEN, France – After MHC Martin, also Italy’s Bolzano Foxes won their first game of the Continental Cup Super Final. They defeated host Rouen Dragons, 3-1.

The “Latino clash” followed in the evening on day one of the Continental Cup Super Final when the Rouen Dragons hosted the Bolzano Foxes. And the Italians didn’t get burnt by the French.

It took just 90 seconds until Christian Walcher completed the first dangerous attack and got Bolzano ahead, 1-0.

Rouen tried to strike back and had a couple of good chances including a breakaway by Julien Desrosiers but Finn Pasi Häkkinen had a strong day in Bolzano’s goal with many unconventional saves.

As it often happens when a team doesn’t capitalize on their chances, the opponent does. With the completion of a penalty against Rouen, the Italians scored the 2-0. Josh Olson saw Alexander Egger who took a shot just in front of Ramon Sopko’s net for the second goal.

Despite the lead, the game remained open. The sell-out crowd of 2,747 spectators made a big and noisy hockey party in the Île Lacroix Arena and pushed their team like the dozens of Bolzano fans did too.

The French fans were really looking forward to this event, that was covered with two stories in France’s biggest sport paper L’Equipe on Friday.

The game became more emotional, Rouen became stronger and more offensive in the middle period and with their third power-play opportunity, Desrosiers cut the lead to a one-goal margin at 35:08.

Rouen tried to get the equalizer after the next face-off but after a bad pass, Bolzano launched a counter-attack and the Rouen defence made a quite passive impression. Christian Borgatello made profit of it and scored the 3-1 goal on a rebound.

Also for the rest of the game, the Foxes were playing clever and physically strong.

Rouen head coach Alain Vogin pulled the goalie at 56:25 and with another penalty call against Bolzano, Rouen could play with six against four skaters for more than a minute.

Eric Doucet and Jarkko Glad had the best chances but the score of 3-1 remained as the Bolzano players could start to celebrate. But the home crowd hasn’t given up on their team yet and was applauding their favourites until the last player had left the ice.

Click here for the game’s photo gallery.

Click here for scores and stats.

MARTIN MERK