The Australian men’s national team have lost 4–6 to the Crotian men’s national team in their opening game of the 2023 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division II Group A tournament in Madrid, Spain. Australia’s goals were scored by Robert Haselhurst, Casey Kubara, Tim Newmark and Daniel Pataky, with all but Haselhurst recording their first goal at the senior World Championship level. The IIHF award for best Australian player of the match was given to forward Tyler Kubara.
In the other games of the day Georgia defeated Iceland 4–1 and Spain beat Israel 8–2. At the end of the first round Australia sits in fourth place on the standings while Spain leads with three points. Australia takes on Spain today for their second game of the tournament. The two teams recently met in an exhibition game prior to the tournament where Australia won 9–5 and last met at the World Championship level in 2019 where Australia won 4–0.
Game summary
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Final | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 0 | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| Croatia | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 |
Standings
| Team | GP | W | OTW | OTL | L | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spain | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Georgia | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Croatia | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Australia | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Iceland | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Israel | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
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