The dominance of the Finnish national team in recent years is obvious even to those who do not follow the situation in international hockey very closely. In the last two world championships, the Suomi team has consistently been on the podium, and in this tournament, Jukka Jalonen’s men have already secured medals for them. And if we recall the first victory in the history of Finnish hockey at the Olympics, which was achieved in February, then this year is in danger of becoming the best in the history of the main offenders of the Russian team in recent years.
Despite the Canadians’ smashing victory over the Czechs in the semi-finals, the hosts of the tournament still have excellent chances for the golden double. The last name to win the Olympics and the World Cup in the same year was the Swedes in 2006 – 16 years have passed since then. And few people will be surprised if the Finns manage to do such a trick and at the same time prevent the Canadians from taking their second consecutive World Cup gold.
The guys with a maple leaf on their chest started much more energetically and immediately took the initiative, took the puck themselves and regularly pressed the opponent into the net. The reigning Olympic champions, in turn, turned on their usual standby mode, opting to let the men in white show off the wild activity sewn into their DNA at the start of the match. However, Claude Julien’s guards could not convert their game advantage into goals. For most of the opening portion of the meeting, both teams showed accurate and careful hockey, typical of the decisive match of the World Cup.
Despite all of Suomi’s attempts to equalize the initiative, the Canadians did not want to slow down: the nominal guests became more frequent and more goal-oriented. And at the start of the second period, these two game features brought them the first dividends – the home defender Niklas Freeman went into the penalty area. But fans of the Finnish national team, who followed the team throughout the tournament, were probably not afraid at all: playing in the minority is one of the strongest points of the Jukka Jalonen team – before the final of the special brigade, the minority of the home team did not miss a single puck. However, that didn’t bother the hockey founders: The men in White took exactly 35 seconds to pick the keys of Juho Olkinuora’s goal. This was followed by a longitudinal pass from Matthew Barzal and an exemplary finish from Dylan Cozens – the Buffalo forward had a fantastic World Cup and became one of his team’s top scorers.
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The start of the third twenty-minute period was marked by positive events for the Finns who were considering a comeback – Nicolas Roy, Noah Gregor and Cole Sillinger went one after another into the penalty area. Moreover, the removal of the latter turned out to be extremely controversial: the young Columbus knocked over Heiskanen’s stick and then struck him in the face. This episode is more like an accident but not a two-minute suspension in the World Cup final.
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And if at first this controversial decision could be regarded as an unfortunate mistake of the referees, then Sillinger’s dismissal after the events would cause a major scandal. The home team skilfully seized the opportunity and turned the match in just 1.5 minutes: Granlund scored a goal, and in the episode where the first goal was scored, the main goalkeeper of the Canadians Chris Drieger was injured and went to the bench.
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The Canadians tried to recover from the shock and tried to attack Olkinuora’s gates, but Yoel Armia scored the 5th goal of the tournament and, it seemed, finally finished the opponent.
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But the actors of Claude Julien once again showed their iron character and were not going to give up. First, Zach Whitecloud removed the spider web from the Finns’ ninth left door, and then Max Comtua played on the famous pence and evened the score 1.5 minutes before the end of regular time. This tournament features a second impressive Canadian comeback!
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As a result, the showdown spilled over into overtime. Where it was summed up again with the removal of the Canadians – Sakari Mannien immediately brought to his team the gold of the World Championship.
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The Finnish team managed to do what our team could never do – the Finns won the Olympic Games and the World Championship within a year. The hegemony of Jukka Jalonen’s men continues, and given the Russian team’s international ban, it may not be over anytime soon.
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