Well, the final results are in from the World Hockey Championships, and
congratulations and the gold medal go to Team Sweden, which beat the
defending (and now former) world champion Soviet Union 2-1 in the game that
decided the title. Sweden thus won its first world hockey championship
since 1987. As for Team USA, they did fairly well, making it to the medal
round, but their performance was marred a little by questionable tactics in
their final game against Canada. More on that below.
Here are the scores from Friday and Saturday:
Friday, 5/3:
Consolation bracket:
Finland 3, Czechoslovakia 2
Germany 3, Switzerland 3 (tie)
Saturday, 5/4:
Medal round:
Canada 9, United States 4
Sweden 2, Soviet Union 1
Final standings:
Medal Round
Team W L T Pts. GF GA
-----------------------------------------------
Sweden 2 0 1 5 13 8
Canada 1 0 2 4 15 10
Soviet Union 1 1 1 3 10 9
United States 0 3 0 0 12 23
Consolation Bracket (includes preliminary round)
Team W L T Pts. GF GA
-----------------------------------------------
Finland 6 3 1 13 35 21
Czechoslovakia 4 6 0 8 28 27
Switzerland 2 7 1 5 22 38
Germany 0 8 2 2 19 51
Gold medal - Sweden
Silver medal - Canada
Bronze medal - Soviet Union
Some notes on Saturday's games:
Canada 9, United States 4
Team USA picked up a 1-0 lead at 2:36 of the first period on a goal by
Shawn McEachern, but that margin lasted all of 13 seconds, as Russ
Courtnall tied the game up for the Canadians. Early in the second
period, the United States had fallen behind 3-1 (after Thomas and
Larmer had scored for Team Canada), but goals by Wolanin at 3:58 and
Krygier at 10:29 tied the score again. After that, however, Team
Canada scored three goals in a 3:10 span to take a 6-3 lead into the
third. With 4:53 left in the game, McEachern tallied for the second
time to bring the US within two, but Larmer's second goal of the game
at the 17:23 mark restored Canada's three-goal margin.
On rec.sport.hockey, Thomas Kalla referred to the end of this game as
"a scandal", and while I'm not sure I'd go that far, I can see where
people might think there was some sort of fix on. Basically what
happened was that with under 30 seconds left to play, and his team on
the short end of a 7-4 score, United States coach Tim Taylor decided to
pull goalie John Vanbiesbrouck. Read it again, folks. Obviously by
that point, there was no way the US was going to score four times and
win the game (which it had to to get a medal), so pulling the goalie
seems like a futile gesture. Well, Canada's Theoren Fleury wasted no
time in taking advantage of the empty net, potting a goal with 15
seconds left. Vanbiesbrouck went back in, but Macoun made it 9-4 with
one tick left on the clock, beating Vanbiesbrouck after skating through
a US defense that Kalla described as "*very* passive". I can see why
Kalla, who I gather is a Sweden fan, was so upset; the sudden five-goal
margin for Team Canada meant that a tie between the Swedes and the
Soviets in the next game would have given Canada the gold, based on
goal differential.
After the game, Taylor explained his decision by saying, "We tried to
break even. We would rather lose by two goals instead of three."
Sorry, Coach, but to me, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Losing by three to a tough Canada team, having stayed relatively close
all the way, would have looked a damn sight better than losing by
*five* and practically gift-wrapping a couple goals at the end. To
complicate matters even further, the United States had been on a power
play starting at the 17:48 mark of the third. If Taylor was so bound
and determined to take a crack at scoring another goal, why not yank
Vanbiesbrouck earlier in the power play and let Team USA try it with
two extra attackers for an extended period, rather than waiting until
so close to the end of both the game and the man-up situation? Canada
was not being terribly threatening in the third period anyway, getting
off a total of only six shots. Taylor is a pretty respected hockey
coach, having been with the Yale program for 15 years and having served
as an assistant with Team USA in the Olympics (1980?), but this mess at
the end of the game was one whale of a head-shaker. I certainly don't
think the guy was deliberately trying to hand the Canadians a shot at
the gold medal (although I hear that fixes are not unheard of in inter-
national hockey), but that move Just Looks Bad, and it detracts from an
otherwise fine effort by Team USA in the tournament.
Sweden 2, Soviet Union 1
Fortunately, it turned out not to matter whether Canada won by three,
five, or fifty goals, as the issue of the gold medal was decided quite
neatly in this game. The Soviets, who are usually listed as one of the
best-conditioned hockey teams in the world, ended up running out of gas
in the third. With the game tied at 1-1 and 9:37 gone in the final
period, Sweden's Mats Sundin picked up another clutch goal by beating
Soviet defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov to the outside and firing the puck
between goalie Andre Trefilov's legs from in close. (Sundin had
earlier salvaged ties with late goals for Sweden against Finland and
the US) The Soviets bombarded the Swedish goal for the rest of the
game, including a power play for the final two minutes, but could not
put the puck in the net.
Sundin's goal in this game enabled him to take the tournament scoring
title; he and Finland's Jari Kurri each had 12 points, but Sundin had
seven goals to Kurri's six. The Swedes also won the Fair Play Cup for
being the least-penalized team in the tournament, although Canada
finished only two minutes behind.
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86
LET'S GO RED!!
"As you know, they've been having a serious drought in California -- all the
car washes are using Handi-Wipes. They even tried to seed the clouds, but
the clouds were on the Pill."
-- Mark Russell
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