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Belarus Takes Pride in Hockey Team's Win VOA Sports 21 Feb 2002 23:07 UTC 
Hockey fans in Belarus have expressed pride in their men's Olympic ice hockey team, one day after a huge 4-3 upset of favored Sweden earned the squad a completely unexpected berth in the semifinals.
Belarus president and number one ice hockey fan, Alexander Lukashenko, led an exuberant nation through day-long celebrations on Thursday. Hundreds of hockey fans poured into the streets of Minsk to pop champagne corks and offer vodka toasts after the final buzzer sounded in Salt Lake City.
Deputy Sports and Tourism Minister Alexander Grigorov was equally thrilled with the victory, saying it will go down in the history not only of Belarusian hockey, but of Belarus sport in general. Belarus had lost its two previous games to the United States and Finland by identical 8-1 scores.
While the fans in Belarus were ecstatic, fans in Sweden saw pictures of the their hockey players on the front pages of national newspapers with headlines including "Fiasco" and "Day of Shame." Swedish sports commentators were competing for bitter words to describe what they called "Sweden's worst defeat ever." National ice hockey federation chief Richard Fagerlund said his e-mail account was overflowing with angry notes from Swedes.
Some information for this report provided by AFP and AP.
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