With a furious race to catch up, defending champions Canada are keeping their chance of winning their 28th World Cup gold at the World Cup in Finland. The team from the home country of ice hockey defeated eleven-time world champions Sweden with a completely insane finish in a dramatic quarter-final.
Canada's ice hockey selection has furiously saved the chance of successfully defending its title at the Ice Hockey World Championship. Despite being 3-0 down, the 27-time champion beat Sweden 4-3 (0-2, 0-1, 3-0, 1-0) after extra time in Tampere, Finland, and made it into the semi-finals . Only in the final third did the Canadians make up for the gap - in the most spectacular way.
Carl Klingberg (2nd), William Nylander (8th) and Max Friberg (29th) gave the Swedes a clear lead in the middle of the game. Ryan Graves (42'), Pierre-Luc Dubois (59') and Matt Barzal (59') forced overtime for Canada in the penultimate minute, with Drake Batherson making the decision after 43 seconds.
On Saturday, the North Americans will play in the semifinals for a place in the final against the Czech Republic, who beat Germany 4-1. With another gold medal, Canada can now become the sole record world champion ahead of Russia, which was excluded from the tournament as a result of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Likewise, by the way, like Belarus.
In the second semi-final, Finland meets the USA. The Finnish Olympic champions prevailed 4-2 on Thursday evening after a long battle against Olympic bronze medalist Slovakia. At the same time, the Americans defeated Switzerland surprisingly clearly 3-0. The Swiss had previously finished first in the German group and were the only team to win all the preliminary round games. You were no longer just a secret but also one of the top favorites for the title.
