Black Sunday for Canadian Ice hockey

Russia’s national ice hockey team wins the IHF World Championship for the first time in 15 years. The Russians beat Canada on Sunday 5-4.
But what might be the worst for the defending champion: they were defeated in front of their home crowd in Québec.

Everything went quite well for the Canadian national ice hockey team during the first World Championship held in their country – until this Sunday.
Three wins in the group stage (including a 5-4 against the US), three more in the main stage, an easy quarterfinal victory over Norway and a 5-4 in the semis against Sweden completed Canada’s run to the final.

But coach Ken Hitchcock’s team wasn’t able to lift the curse that’s with IHF World Championship hosts for 22 years now. In 1986, the Soviet Union was the last team to win the Championship in front of a home crowd.
It were their “descendants” now, who came back from 2-4 late in the third period, when two quick goals from Alexei Tereshchenko and Ilya Kovalchuk leveled the game. The final went to overtime, and after about three minutes Canada's Rick Nash found himself in the penalty box for delaying the game.
The Russians didn’t miss that chance and Kovalchuk again decided the match with a well-placed wrist shot over the shoulder of Canada’s Goalie Cam Ward.

Besides the title, four Russians were named for the ice hockey Team of the Century announced by the International Ice Hockey Federation on Saturday.
These are goalkeeper Vladislav Tretyak, defenseman Vyacheslav Fetisov and forwards Valery Kharlamov and Sergei Makarov. They played for the Soviet national team in the 1970s and 1980s.

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Created by: ShaqAttack Last edited by: Berlin