National hockey team of Turkmenistan has returned from Japan, where recently VIII Asian Winter Games have been completed. As previously reported, our countrymen, performing in such comprehensive representative competitions for the first time, have won the “small” gold medals among the participants of the second division. In the group stage of the games Turkmen hockey players have won three confident victories - over the teams of Malaysia (9:2), China Macau (16:0) and Indonesia (12:2). These achievements have provided the pupils of Bayram Allayarov a place in the finals, where they defeated the national team of Kyrgyzstan - 7:3. In a friendly match with the team of Islamic Republic of Iran our team has had a confident win, scoring 13 goals and conceding just two. In the list of top bombardiers six goals in our team have been scored by Baymyrat Baymyratov. Five accurate shots are among the assets of Ahmed Kurbanov (captain), Pavel Barkowski, Dovlet Soyunov, Ezizmuhammet Akmuhammetov and Yakut Berdyev. Four goals are on the accounts of Maksat Atayev, Meylis Guliyev and Alexander Wachowski, three – of Dmitry Savin and Dovlet Hydyrov. Aman Aganiyazov and Ishan Veleyev have scored twice and Nurmuhammed Nuriyev and Ewald Gaer have struck the gates of opponents once. Now the team of Turkmenistan, formed from the leading players of the four capital's clubs (“Galkan”, “Shir”, “Oguzhan” and “Nesil”) will prepare for the Asian Cup to be held in Kuwait next month. In the group stage of the games, our compatriots will meet with hockey players of China Macau again. In addition, they will compete with the teams from the Philippines, Oman, Qatar, India and Kuwait. Another good steps in preparation are Turkmenistan championship matches, which will start on the ice arena of Ashgabat on 6th of March. Eight teams will participate in the competition, - the first and second compositions of “Galkan”, “Shir”, “Oguzhan”, “Nesil”, “Merdan”, “Watanchi” and “Alp Arslan”. The winners will be determined in the second decade of May.