A violent collision with a Slovak player only took the air out of Hannu Sormunen.
The collision between Hannu Sormunen and Samuel Takac hurt both. Mauri Ratilainen / AOP
An unfortunate event was seen in the A-block match of the World Cup on Wednesday night when a line referee whistling between Switzerland and Slovakia Hannu Sormunen was injured.
Sormunen had to leave the match when he collided with a Slovak striker Samuel Takacin with. Takac also injured himself in the situation, but he was able to continue the match.
Takac was skating at a rapid pace to the attack area, where Sormunen stood in the blue line monitoring the offside.
– It felt like the truck was rolling over my chest. The air went to the yard, but fortunately there was no hit, Sormunen comments to Iltalehti.
Despite the hard work, Sormunen’s tournament continues as normal.
– A small shake came, but now we are ready to continue the race.
At first, the situation looked scary when you had to bring a stretcher on the ice for safety. However, Sormunen was able to skate out of the trough himself.
A Czech line referee jumped in the middle of the match to replace Sormunen Josef Spur.
Sormunen, 41, is the most experienced line referee in the history of the Finnish Championship. He whistled in the 700th match of his main league career last March.
Sormunen is already involved in the fourth World Championships for men in his career.