Need help with Finnish translation

[icing101]

Hello to all hockey board members!

May I please ask of your help in translating a page in Finnish to English? I have not been able to find a
good translation to read this old article from 1996 and
I only understand 25% of the Finnish words in it.

I would be most grateful for any help you can provide.
Here is a link to the article:

www.mtv3.fi/uutiset/arkisto/9608/960816/9608160407.html

Again, thank you kindly for any assistance.

[Laho]

RUSSIA TAKES A NARROW VICTORY OVER THE FINNISH LIONS

(Updated 20:45)

The Russian and Finnish ice hockey teams had a speedy and rough game in Moscow. The teams preparing to World Cup were both in good mood for the game, but the 5000 spectators who had crammed themselves in the brand new Central Army hockey arena cheered the home team to a narrow 5-4 (2-1, 1-0, 2-3) win.

The game lived from the very start. It was no longer than 39 seconds from the summer and the Finnish goalkeeper Markus Ketterer had to dig the puck out from his net.
The Russians gathered around Sergei Gontshar, who got the valuable assists from Aleksey Kovalev and Aleksey Yashin.

Mika Nieminen tied the game for Finns in 9.10. Nieminen accurately sniped the puck past goalkeeper Andrey Trefilov to the upper-back-corner of the Russian net. Five minutes later the audience had again a good reason to keep up the noise when Andrey Kovalenko took the home team back on lead, assisted by Vjatsheslav Fetisov.

There was some dirty game in the first period too. The most hard-working man to use his stick on Finns aside the puck was the New York Islanders defenseman Darius Kasparaitis. Another hassle between Fetisov and Teemu Selänne ended finally as Selänne pulling the longer straw. He dodged a rough, revenge-hungry boarding by the Russian veteran and Fetisov ran head-first into the boards all alone, just barely avoiding any serious injuries.


Goals, goals and more goals

In the second period there was just one goal, made by Yashin, but during the final period, the puck visited in net for total five times.

Finland tied the game again with two goals made by Sami Kapanen and Janne Niinimaa, but after that the great individual skill of the Russians and few minor Finnish mishaps turned the final numbers to the home teams' favor.

First Pavel Bure scored the game to 4-3, and the winning goal of the game was made by Sergey Fedorov. The Finns yet climbed to one-goal chase thanks to Juha Ylönen, but the intense game from the Finns during the last two minutes was not enough to bring the game to a tie.


Best sparring available

Team Finland coaches Curt Lindström and Hannu Aravirta had scrambled the lines quite a deal since the game against Sweden. The idea was to give an equal amount of minutes to all, because the prep games are played after the NHL rulebook (18 skaters dressed up per match). That meant the ones who had had rest against Sweden were the first skaters in Moscow. In the best trim was the Finnish first line Selänne-Janne Ojanen-Nieminen. Also, Ylönen gave examples of what's he got.
Assistant coach Aravirta was overall happy with the show Lions put up, let out the few minor mishaps in the end of the third. He gave some special praises to the intense speed and grit during the game.
-This was best sparring available, because in our own training sessions we can't go this far as in fear of injuries. By the other aspects we're still experimenting things, so there was a few minor mistakes after we tied the game, Aravirta commented while on his way to the dressing room.

Aravirta also high-valued the Russian team, sporting all the possible stars. For example their first line Mogilny-Fedorov-Bure will be a tough nut to crack in the cup.
-They're all in perfect fit and want to play with full heart for their team, Aravirta told, thus giving a warning concerning the red danger.

Team Finland plays its next game in Czech on Sunday.
(STT)

[icing101]

Laho, a million grateful thank yous to you for your
generous help. I very much appreciate the time and
effort you took to translate the article. I was only
able to pick out certain words with a Finnish dictionary but could not fully understand what the article was
saying. Your translation made it very clear. Thank you
again for your help.

[Tigger]

@ Laho

I salute you !!! I´m deeply impressed !!!

[Laho]

Don't mention it. Took me just about little less than half an hour since I do have some experience about things like this before.

The pleasure was all mine, since this really was "best sparring available".