2022 Beijing Winter Olympics – Page 3

The women’s competition is over in Beijing, and all ten teams fly home with a different sense of accomplishment and purpose which they can put to good use in August when, for the first time ever, a top-level IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship will take place in an Olympic year.

Here is a look at how the teams performed and what they are thinking heading to a spring and summer of preparation.

Canada – gold
Marie-Philip Poulin is at the height of her powers. Sarah Fillier is right behind. Ann-Renee Desbiens is the clear number-one goalie. Defender Claire Thompson has arrived. And then there is Sarah Nurse, Brianne Jenner, and Natalie Spooner. Canada just has to keep going and doing more of the same.

United States – silver
The Americans can’t panic, but at the same time they are the clear number two right now. Time for a changing of the guard? That’s tough when the best two players in Beijing were veterans Hilary Knight and Kendall Coyne Schofield. Coach Joel Johnson struggled to find ice time for two of his emerging stars, Caroline Harvey and Jincy Dunne. Management needs to re-group and reassess. All options on the table.

Finland – bronze
Plenty of younger talent on a team that survived a slow start to win bronze again. They remain the clear European champions. Jenni Hiirikoski continues to be herself, and Susanna Tapani is a world-class player. Is the Noora Raty era truly over? Is Anni Keisala the goalie of the future? The Finns have plenty of talent to create a core that can beat the North Americans. They need time and opportunity now to gain valuable experience and enrich their confidence.

Switzerland – 4th
They have a great goalie in Andrea Braendli and a first line that can compete with any – Muller-Stalder-Staenz. But they need a second line that can score, and a third line that can shut down the best players on the other team. On the back end, Lara Christen has been a standout, but she also needs a mini-me. The Swiss have distanced themselves from teams below them but have yet to prove to be a consistent adversary to the Finns.

ROC – 5th
There are some talented players here, but they have lost to Switzerland the last two elimination games. Polina Bolgareva and Fanuza Kadirova are two bright young stars, and Maria Sorokina has shown flashes of brilliance in goal. ROC and Switzerland have a great rivalry in that slot one below Finland, but the Swiss have had the upper hand lately thanks to better preparedness for the big games and a greater fighting spirit.

Japan – 6th
It used to be Japan would come to a tournament and would be lucky to score a goal or two. In their first five Women’s World appearances they won two games and lost 20. And in three previous Olympics they won two and lost 13. But at the 2021 WW they won four games and finished 6th, and in Beijing they won three of their first four games (to go with a loss in a shootout). This program has come a very long way, and proves development is very much possible – but it takes time. The Japanese are getting to the point where they can compete night in, night out, with the Europeans.

Czechia – 7th
Klara Peslarova in goal is a good starting point for Czechia. At 25, she is in the prime of her career and can give her team a chance to win every night. Tereza Vanisova had a great Olympics, scoring twice and finishing with six points. The 26-year-old has plenty of international experience, and with teammates like Alena Mills and Denisa Krizova, there is a core there for a promising future. But like all emerging countries, the problem is the same – they need more core.

Sweden – 8th
The Swedes qualified the hard way for participation because they aren’t in the top division of the Women’s Worlds anymore, and an 11-0 loss to Canada in the quarter-finals didn’t help their morale. But there are many excellent young players on this team – think Sofie Lundin, Maja Nylen-Persson, Mina Waxin – and with some time they’ll be back in the top competing for a medal once again. Often their greatest rivals were Finland, but the Finns have turned over one generation to the next a little faster and more successfully than Sweden so far. That might well change in the next year or two. The next focus will be earning promotion back to the top-level Women’s Worlds. They will play the Division IA tournament in Angers, France in April.

China – 9th
With an IIHF Women’s World Ranking of 20, they won’t be at the Women’s Worlds, but if they ever want to qualify for the top level in the future, they have to grow the game. The world’s most populous country is building arenas, but they need to get equipment, playing time, local programs and appropriate coaching for thousands more girls than currently play the game at home. The Olympics can be a stimulus for growth. In the meantime the club team KRS Vanke Rays, which competes in Russia, can continue to form the top players and help earn promotion. China will play in the Division IB in Katowice, Poland in April.

Denmark – 10th
The Danes made it back to the top pool of the Women’s Worlds last year, and this was their first ever Olympics. These are significant milestones in what will be a long journey if they hope to be competitive and remain in the top pool on an ongoing basis. They have a quality goalie in Cassandra Repstock-Romme, but, like China, they need more players to get involved in the game at the youth level, out of which will emerge a group of stars for the international stage. Every tournament is valuable experience, as will the 2022 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship, which they are hosting.

The tournament is scheduled from 26 August to 4 September in Herning and Fredrikshavn.

Source: iihf.com

On the strength of Sakari Manninen’s first-period winner, Finland advanced to its second Olympic gold medal game in history with a hard-fought 2-0 victory over Slovakia on Friday.

“Going to the Olympic final is like a dream,” said Manninen, one of 17 KHLers on the seasoned Finnish roster.

Coach Jukka Jalonen’s troops will face the winner of the ROC-Sweden semi-final for international hockey’s biggest prize on Sunday at Beijing’s National Indoor Stadium.

“If you want to win these types of games, you have to defend and I think we did that extremely well,” Jalonen said. “There was not very much room for the Slovak forwards. It’s one of our strengths, but we would have liked to play a little better offensively.”

Shots favoured Slovakia 28-27 in the first semi-final. Both goalies were strong, but Slovakia’s Patrik Rybar just made one more mistake than his Finnish counterpart Harri Sateri, who got his first Olympic shutout.

Harri Pesonen sealed the deal with an empty-netter with 39 seconds remaining.

The Finns, who won the 2019 Worlds and earned silver at the 2021 Worlds, own two Olympic silver medals (1988, 2006) and four bronze medals (1994, 1998, 2010, 2014). They’re aiming for a happier result on Sunday than their 3-2 final loss to Sweden in 2006 on Nicklas Lidstrom’s famous early third-period goal. (In 1988 in Calgary, the Olympic tournament featured a round-robin format.)

“It’s a pretty special day,” said Pesonen. “I knew coming into the Olympics that we’d have a good, solid team, a veteran team with a lot of experienced guys, but every tournament is a mystery [in terms of] how it goes and how it ends.”

Despite the loss, the underdog Slovaks can be incredibly proud. Nobody foresaw the ninth-ranked team in the IIHF Men’s World Ranking cracking the final four in 2022. And coach Craig Ramsay’s team still has a shot at Slovakia’s first Olympic medal ever on Saturday.

“I am so sad right now, but we have to forget about this because we have our next game tomorrow and we have to take the [bronze] medal,” said Rybar.

This was a grinding, defensive duel, which suited Finland well. However, the Slovaks battled hard until the bitter end. They showed the doubters that they weren’t emotionally drained at this point in their Cinderella run. Slovakia was miles better than in its opening 6-2 loss to these same Finns.

Juraj Slafkovsky, the 17-year-old Slovak phenom who plays for TPS Turku in Finland, entered this semi-final with five goals, tied for the Olympic lead with Sweden’s Lucas Wallmark. Ramsay elevated Slafkovsky to the top line with captain Marek Hrivik and Peter Cehlarik, who scored the late equalizer and the shootout winner respectively in the 3-2 quarter-final win over the Americans.

“I think we had some offensive chances when we held the puck in their end,” Slafkovsky said. “But you know, when luck isn’t on your side, like it was the last game, then it’s tough. Tomorrow, I hope we’ll have luck on our side.”

The only pre-2022 Olympic game between these two nations with populations of approximately 5.5 million was Finland’s 5-3 victory in the 2010 bronze medal game. In Vancouver, Finland rallied from a 3-1 third-period deficit as Olli Jokinen scored the equalizer and the go-ahead goal and Valtteri Filppula – Finland’s Beijing captain – added an empty-netter. Slovakia’s fourth-place finish marked its Olympic peak.

Here, the gritty, veteran Finns bided their time, awaiting a Slovak error. Even though Slovakia generated some good pressure, Manninen found a chink in their armour at 15:58. With traffic in front, the diminutive, crafty centre tipped Petteri Lindbohm’s long shot and tucked the rebound underneath Rybar’s right pad for a 1-0 lead.

“We got a shot from the blueline, traffic in front of the net, a little tip and then there was a rebound, and that’s always a dangerous chance to score,” Manninen said.

It was Manninen’s fourth goal of these Games. He’s tied with linemate and Salavat Yulayev Ufa linemate Teemu Hartikainen for the team lead with seven points, and both are in contention for the tournament scoring title. Manninen also had a hat trick against Slovakia in the opener. At the 2019 Worlds, Manninen led the golden Finns in Bratislava with 11 points.

Early in the second period, Hrivik swooped in and had Sateri beaten when he went to the forehand, but put the puck off the side of the net. Slovakia fired shots at Sateri from all angles, but couldn’t faze him.

“It was a tough battle but we did a great job as a team defending in the middle,” said the Finnish goalie. “We kept them outside, so the guys helped me a lot today.”

Careless, back-to-back tripping penalties by Peter Ceresnak and Pavol Regenda gave Finland a 5-on-3 man advantage for 1:13. But despite good Finnish offensive-zone possession, the Slovaks succeeded in killing it off. Rybar denied Manninen from the slot on Suomi’s best chance.

At one point, a scrum along the boards behind the Slovak net wore for on for more than 30 seconds. Neither team was doing this the easy way.

Ramsay gave the Finns their due: “They clogged up the neutral zone and, more important, I think, was the play in their own end. We just had real trouble with them because they were so strong and so quick.”

The third period started off with another ineffective Finnish power play, and Slafkovsky and Michal Kristof generated a 2-on-1 rush just before it expired, but couldn’t cash in. Mid-period, a strong backcheck by 19-year-old Slovak defender Samuel Knazko (the World Junior captain in 2021 and 2022) disrupted Finnish veteran Leo Komarov’s promising drive to the net.

The Finns withstood Slovakia’s late push with veteran professionalism after Rybar was pulled with 1:38 left. Pesonen took no chances on his empty-net goal, steering the puck in from point-blank range.

“It wasn’t the prettiest game today but we won it,” said Finnish assistant captain Marko Anttila, who became a folk hero with his huge playoff goals in the 2019 gold-medal run.

“It is a tough pill to swallow,” Hrivik said. “We had them under a lot of pressure but could not score.”

After masterminding two IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship gold medals (2011, 2019) and a home-ice World Junior title (2016), Jalonen’s stature as the greatest Finnish coach ever is already sealed. If his squad triumphs in Beijing, this Finnish Hockey Hall of Famer indubitably belongs in the conversation with Canada’s Mike Babcock and the Soviet Union’s Viktor Tikhonov.

In Beijing, the Finnish women won bronze for the second straight Olympics with a 4-0 blanking of Switzerland. Now Finland’s men are hungry to capture an even shinier medal.

“It’s huge for everybody individually, as a team, and as a hockey country,” Sateri said. “It is a big thing.”

Slovakia owns four IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship medals all-time, including gold (2002), silver (2000, 2012), and bronze (2003). Winning any Olympic medal would send their fans into fits of joy in Bratislava and beyond. And that should give Ramsay’s men motivation aplenty in the bronze game.

“It is a chance to showcase how Slovak hockey has moved forward,” said Ramsay. “This is an opportunity to show the world who we are.”