Men's ice hockey Day 1 Round Up: ROC beat Switzerland, Denmark surprise Czech Republic

Men's ice hockey action got underway on Wednesday (9 February) at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 with defending champions ROC defeating Switzerland 1-0.

“We had the experience," said forward Mikhail Grigorenko, a member of the gold-medal team from PyeongChang 2018. "Some younger guys have been playing for a while and others have won some really cool games. We had a really long training. Yeah, we are ready.”

In the day's second match-up, Czech Republic, who finished fourth in PyeongChang, could not come back after Olympic newcomers Denmark scored two early goals.

The Danes held on for 2-1 to make the perfect start to their Games debut.

Action continues tomorrow with four match-ups: Sweden play Latvia, Finland meet Slovakia, United States face China, and Canada take on PyeongChang silver medallists Germany.

Anton Slepyshev of ROC scored the only goal off an assist from Kirill Semyonov at the end of the first period (19:57).

It was an intense match-up with four players receiving roughing penalties at 32:31.

"Both teams played good, worked really hard and there was a lot of emotion," said Grigorenko. "We played pretty hard today. But we have got this one.”

Swiss head coach Patrick Fischer was pleased with what he saw from his team overall, but sees room for improvement.

“We liked the performance. We liked our attitude. It was the first game for us and not everything was clicking," he said. “Russia is a strong team and we kept them to one goal, which is good. But we have to start scoring. That would help.”

ROC face Denmark on Friday, with the Swiss going up against the Czech Republic.

Days after Denmark's women earned their first Olympic victory by the odd goal over Czech Republic, their male compatriots did the same.