Great Britain is one point away from locking the gold medal and with that  
  promotion to Division 1 Group A after a 3-2 victory over the Netherlands.  
  The  
  game between Great Britain and the Netherlands was played in front of a  
  packed  
  arena in Eindhoven and the fans got value for their money. In the end it  
  were  
  the British fans that had all reason to cheer since the God Save the Queen  
  was  
  played for the fourth consecutive time.  "Coming into today's game as the  
  group leaders does bring extra pressure," admitted Jonathan Boxill. "There's  
  no denying that but our coaching staff is preparing us well and helping us  
  doing our job as well as possible."  Contrary to previous games, the Dutch  
  found themselves ahead early in the game. Jordy van Oorschot managed to keep  
  the puck in the offensive zone after which Diederick Hagemeijer found Steve  
  Mason in front of the net. The son of Klagenfurter AC coach Doug Mason, made  
  no mistake and one-timed the puck behind Ben Bowns.  The orange dressed fans  
  couldn't enjoy the lead for long. Within a minute the Brits equalized when a  
  Paul Swindlehurst shot surprised the Netherlands goaltender Martijn  
  Oosterwijk  
  who was partly screened on the play.  It wasn't Oosterwijk's night as he  
  didn't look good when Chris Blight found space between the post and the arm  
  of  
  the netminder. Things got from bad to worse when the Netherlands failed to  
  properly clear a puck giving Craig Peacock the opportunity to slid the puck  
  underneath a hesitating Dutch goalie to give Great Britain a 3-1 lead.  That  
  goal marked the end of Oosterwijk's game as he was immediately pulled after  
  the goal and replaced by Ian Meierdres.  The goalie change did stop the  
  goalscorring flurry. Although both teams hit the post once neither was able  
  to  
  dominate in the second stanza which lacked good scoring opportunities.  This  
  changed in the third period which was more open as the hosts were taking  
  more  
  risks in order to get back into the game.  And it paid off for the Dutch  
  After Ian Meierdres made the save of the night with a diving stop on his  
  right  
  it was Levi Houkes who connected with a deflection of Maarten Brekelmans to  
  cut the deficit back to one for the Netherlands.  The Brits are no strangers  
  to defending one goal leads though. After all their previous three victories  
  this tournament came with the smallest possible margin.  "A win is a win  
  regardless of how big it is," said Great Britain's dynamo Boxill afterwards.  
  "The Netherlands were strong today and played a good system which caused us  
  problem. Also the goalie, Meierdres, did terrific for them." The Dutch  
  netminder finished stopping all 19 shots he faced after coming in as a  
  replacement for Oosterwijk.  The last 20 seconds it was nailbiting for the  
  GB  
  fans as David Phillips was sent to the penalty box and the Dutch pulled  
  their  
  goaltender to create a two man advantage but Great Britain survived the  
  frantic finale.   Chris Eimers was visibly disappointed. "This was an  
  unneccessary loss. For a change we do start the game well but we give away  
  the  
  goals far too easily."  The win prolongues the British winning streak which  
  now stands at four games this tournament. Great Britain leads runner-up  
  Korea  
  by two points. A single point against Lithuania would see team GB return  
  Division 1A. The team participated at that level in 2012 and 2013 before.  
  For  
  the Netherlands the loss means they can get ready for the game against  
  pointless Estonia tomorrow. The game will decide on which team will relegate  
  to Division 2. The Dutch require a point to send Estonia down.  
    
  http://wmib2015.iihf.com/en/news/almost-there/  
  --- SBBSecho 2.27-Win32  
   * Origin: TequilaMockingbird Online, Toms River NJ (1:266/404)