A great roar erupted from the Finland team after they finally claimed Olympic ice hockey gold, the first ever for their nation, beating ROC 2-1 at the National Indoor Stadium in Beijing on Sunday (20 February).
After winning two silvers and four bronze medals Finland finally took the ultimate prize beating the defending Olympic champions (who were known as OAR in PyeongChang four years ago) 2-1 in a tightly fought match that saw the Finns also claim their first ever Olympic medal in any team sport.
ROC took the lead in the eighth minute of the first period courtesy of Mikhail Grigorenko with assists from the Nikitas – Nesterov and Gusev.
In the second period, Finland drew level after defenseman Ville Pokka scoried (23.28), assisted by Hannes Bjorninen and Atte Ohtamaa.
Finland finally took the lead 31 seconds into the third period via Bjorninen with Marko Anttila and Ohtamaa assisting, to bring the gold home topped up nicely by a no-loss record at Beijing 2022.
In the bronze medal match on Saturday (19 February) Slovakia claimed bronze after beating Sweden 4-0 after two goals from teenage sensation Juraj Slafkovsky.
On winning Finland’s first Olympic ice hockey gold medal, Harri Pesonen said: “It’s pretty surreal. It’s the first ever for our country in hockey so for sure we made history. Right now it’s still a bit of an empty feeling. It’s over and I’m surprisingly calm right now. I think that all of the emotions will come later.
“I’m so proud of this team, how we played, we didn’t lose a single game in this tournament. We are so tough to beat. What a great group of guys.”
Arseni Gritsyuk, from ROC, said about winning his first Olympic medal: “There is emptiness. It is a bitter loss. I have to recharge now and return to the club with new emotions.
“We made few shots, we put little pressure on them. The Finns played really well in the middle zone. They destroyed almost all of our attacks in the middle zone. We had little time in the attack zone.”
“It was a tough game,” said Finland’s Markus Granlund. “But obviously our fourth line, which I think should be called our first line, the guys scored two big goals and everyone was really good defensively. I think that was the difference (between the teams) today.”
