Hello, it's me again. The most annoying member of the IIHF HO. Lucky for you, this will be last last announcement...until my next one!
The final day of the S79 IIHF tournament has come and gone. The lights are off and the fans are leaving Philly. This tournament was full of fantastic moments! Many teams will be pleased with how they performed while others will be scratching their heads and wondering where it all went wrong. It was an unbelievably close tournament, with the medal round teams earning their spots on tiebreakers. Four points separated the top six teams in Group A while the top and bottom of Group B were separated by 6. The margins were minimal and that will have caused some stinging for a few teams. Sweden , Finland and the United States will be disappointed in their week. These normally top performing teams just weren't feeling it this which resulted in them finishing a few points out of advancing. Japan , Germany and Quebec were looking to take a step in the right direction and solidify themselves as a contender. For these three teams, S79 wasn't their season. In Group B, we saw GB , Latvia and Czechia all make their way into the medal round while Ireland had a bounce back season after a disappointing S79 tournament. In the end, it was the top two teams in Group A walking away with wins in their final games.
Starting with the Bronze medal game, we saw Switzerland v Czechia . The top team in each pool faced off for the third and final medal. It was an extremely close game that saw Switzerland score in the first minute of the game. Nearly equal shots persisted throughout the game and it took until the 17 minute of the second period for Czechia to find the back of the net. The Swiss responded quickly to go up 2-1 heading into the third. A hard fought third period resulted in a late powerplay goal from the Swiss to seal the deal, winning the bronze medal 3-1.
Onto the gold medal game where tournament favourite was taking on the Cinderella story Latvia . This high scoring afair had six goals in the first period and 5 in the third. The Latvians came out firing scoring three goals in the first four minutes of play. A couple back and forth goals from each side sent the game into intermission with Latvia leading 4-2. The second had no goals but continued to be an even game as the two teams fought. The Canadians should pay whoever gave the pump up speech during the second intermission because it worked wonders. The Canadians came out firing scoring two goals in the first 4 minutes to tie the game before scoring another two goals to make it five unanswered goals. Team Canada dominated the third in which they had double the shots of Latvia . A last second goal from Latvia made it a one goal game. It was too little too late as the final whistle blew crowning Team Canada for back-to-back championships.
Congratulations to Team Canada on winning the S79 IIHF Tournament !!!!!!
GOLD: SILVER: BRONZE:
You will get a few days reprieve from me but stay tuned as the tournament awards will be announced soon.
Probably the most competitive IIHF tournament I can remember - all but one team in the groups finished between 15-21 points, and most of the knockout and medal games were extremely competitive. That gold medal game was a worthy finale.
Fun fact, that's also our fed's first ever bronze. 4 silvers plus the S65 gold. Nice to have a medal that you won in the last game again lol