Lions reach semi-finals in Ice Hockey WC
Published : 04 Jun 2021, 00:49
Updated : 04 Jun 2021, 01:38
Defending champion Finland reached the semi-finals of the Ice Hockey World Championship beating Czech Republic by a solitary goal in the quarter-finals at Arena Riga in Latvia late Thursday night.
Jere Innala ensured the sixth consecutive victory for the Lions in the tournament scoring the only goal at the 33rd minute in the second period of the tough match.
Although the Finns dominated the match over the Czechs, both the teams created pressures on each other and waged attacks and counterattacks during the match.
The Czech players tried their best to level the score and played without goaltender at the end of the game more than two minutes but the victory went to Finland finally.
Finland will face Germany in the semi-final on Saturday.
Jukka Jalonen, the head coach of Finland expressed his satisfaction over the result saying that his team did not consume any goal in the match.
He also appreciated the performance of the goaltender, defenders and whole the team as well.
Earlier, in seven previous matches in the tournament, Finland scored victory against the USA, Norway, Italy, Germany, Latvia and Canada while lost to Kazakhistan.