The USA and the Ice Hockey World Championship - they just don't go together. The last title was more than six decades ago. This year, the team is reaching for a medal in the game for third place and is literally shown off in the last third.
It was supposed to be the conciliatory conclusion of the Ice Hockey World Championship for the USA - but the game for third place turned into a debacle. After a real disaster in the third period, the Czech Republic suffered a 4:8 defeat (3:1, 0:1, 1:6). The Czechs ended the tournament in third place and won a medal at the World Championships for the first time in ten years.
The Czech Republic, which eliminated the German team in the quarter-finals, was clearly defeated by Canada in the semi-finals (1:6). The Americans lost out to hosts and Olympic champions Finland (3:4). In the final in the evening (from 7.20 p.m.) Canada and Finland will face each other.
The USA, who won bronze at the World Cup against Germany last year, were already 3 in the lead after the first third thanks to goals from NHL pros Karson Kuhlmann (10th/20th minute) and Adam Gaudette (13th): 1. After conceding a goal from Jiri Cernoch (16') and a goal from Jiri Smejkal (33') in the middle section, the Czechs turned up the heat in the final third. NHL scorer David Pastrnak (41st), Roman Cervenka (43rd) and Pastrnak again (44th) turned the game around completely within 166 seconds in Tampere, Finland.
The US team had no offensive action at all. Even outnumbered, David Kampf scored (55th) and a little later again into the empty US goal (59th). In the end, Pastrnak even scored his seventh goal of the tournament (60'). Previously, Thomas Bordeleau (59th) had only corrected the result for the USA. For the USA, the sobering record remains: they were last world champions in 1960 and have failed in the semi-finals 15 times since then.
The Czechs, who last won bronze at the World Cup in Finland in 2012, defeated Germany 4-1 in the quarter-finals on Thursday. The team of national coach Toni Söderholm is seventh in the final ranking. Last year at the World Cup in Riga, Germany finished fourth.
