Manninen´s hattrick helps Finland to beat Slovakia 6-2 in Olympic opener

Sakari Manninen scored three goals to help Finland to beat Slovakia by 6 goals to 2 in the men's ice hockey game in the Winter Olympics in Beijing at National Indoor stadium on Thursday.

Miro Aaltonen scored two goals and Harri Pesonen scored one to ensure the victory for the Lions in the first match of the 2022 Olympics while Juraj Slafkovsky scored both the goals for Slovakia.

Although Slovakia took the lead when Slafkovsky scored his first goal at the sixth minute of the game, Manninen equalized the score at the 11th minutes.

Later Pesonen scored at 15th minutes and took lead for Finland and Aaltonen and Manninen widened the gap completely dominating over the Slovakians.

Slafkovsky´s second goal at 32nd minute just heled the Slovakians to narrow down the goal difference.

"We had really good offence today. Six goals, we have to be happy with that," Manninen told news agency Xinhua.

"We had some chances and scored on them, we had a good goalie and good penalty kill, but we also have things to improve," said the report quoting Manninen as saying.

Finland will face Latvia in their second match on Friday.