Published 22.04.2015 19:53 GMT+2 | Author Martin Merk

Hungary beat Italy for the first time since 1978 in an IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship event to remain in a promising spot for the battle for promotion.

The Hungarians, who outshot Italy 22-11, built up a 2-0 lead in a strong first period to win the game 4-1.

“Bringing a lot of energy early really cut the Italian team off balance. Anytime you can do that you have opportunities to score although we didn’t capitalize on any of our chances except on the power play until late in the first period,” Hungary head coach Rich Chernomaz said.

The last time Hungary beat Italy in an IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship was in the B-Pool in 1978 in Belgrade, 5-2. Among the players involved in that game were the fathers of Diego Kostner and Marco Insam. Since then Hungary has only been ranked better than Italy three times (1979, 2003, 2009) and can earn promotion with wins in the remaining games against Ukraine and Poland.

“I didn’t know it was that long but I’m really happy. They have a good team. We always play close games against then and I’m happy we won,” said Daniel Koger, who scored a goal and had an assist.

“I think we kept it simple, we played the way the coach wants us to play, we always stuck to the game plan. Also our goalie made huge saves when we needed him.”

At 10:52 a one-timer from Daniel Koger after a drop pass from Frank Banham brought Hungary the lead and seven minutes later Hungary’s fourth line made it 2-0. Krisztian Nagy won the face-off in the offensive zone and Balint Magosi hammered the puck in.

“We lost the game in the first period. We are going through a process and some of the players were not quite ready for the change of pace the way Hungary came out. It was better after the second period when we created chances,” Italy head coach Stefan Mair said.