There's the "agony of defeat." And then there's this women's ice hockey score from the European Olympic pre-qualifying tournament: Slovakia 82, Bulgaria 0.
That's correct: 82 goals for Slovakia, none for Bulgaria.
The International Ice Hockey Federation said the result, from a game played Saturday at the tournament in Liepaja, Latvia, set a record score for a women's IIHF-sanctioned event. It was not the all-time record for futility, however; that is still held by Thailand, which lost 92-0 to South Korea in the 1998 Asia-Oceania U18 Championship.
Slovakia, which won all four of its games at the tournament, outshot Bulgaria 139-0, scoring on 58.9 percent of its shots on goal. Slovakia averaged one goal every 44 seconds.
"We took it as training," Slovakia coach Miroslav Karafiat said after Saturday's game.
Bulgaria trailed 7-0 after 5 minutes, 19-0 after 10 and 31-0 at the end of the first period.
The drubbing capped a woeful showing for the Bulgarian women, who also lost 30-1 to Croatia and 41-0 to Italy in earlier games.
Janka Culikova led Slovakia with 10 goals, while Martina Velickova scored nine. Fourteen different players scored at least one goal.
Slovakia, which also beat Croatia, Latvia and Italy, advanced to another qualifying group with Germany, Kazakhstan and France. The winner will secure a spot at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Bulgaria was eliminated after scoring one goal and giving up conceding 192 in the tournament.
The Slovakian men's team clinched its biggest ever victory against the Bulgarians 14 years ago when they won 20-0.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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