RIGA – A historically poor start to the World Cup did not prevent Canada’s selection of ice hockey from a happy golden finish. After an initially poor preliminary round, Canada crowned themselves world champions for the 27th time on Sunday in Riga with a thrilling 3-0 (0:1, 1:0, 1:1, 1:0) after extra time against defending champion Finland. . With it, the Canadians met the record champion Russia.

NHL forwards Maxime Comtoua (25 minutes) and Adam Henrique (53) of the Anaheim Ducks equalized twice. In overtime, Ottawa Senator Nick Paul led the Canadians to the gold medal and prevented the Finns from winning their fourth world title. For Suomi, Mikael Ruhoma (9) and Petteri Lindbaum (46) had too few goals to defend the 2019 title a day after their narrow semi-final win over Germany.

Revenge of the final re-release

Canada also hit back in the final version after their defeat two years ago in Slovakia (1:3). In 2020, the tournament was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Last time Canada took the World Cup title in 2016, also against Finland.

This time, at the start of the tournament, an exciting North American qualifying round was expected in place of the next World Cup title. The young selection had surprisingly lost three times and also pulled the short straw with 1:3 against Germany. Only then did the world number one go up, but reached the quarter-finals thanks to Germany 2-1 against Latvia.

Coming late in the final against a mighty Finns defense, the Canadians twice used off-balls to equalize. Henrique’s alleged hit to the motherland of ice hockey, which would have led to a 2-1 lead, is not recognized after video evidence. Both finalists had already had a close duel in the preliminary round, with the score being 2-2 after the regular time. Finland then won on penalties.