Lions become runners-up as Canada foil dream in “miracle” final

Despite taking lead twice in the match the Lions finally failed to clinch the title for the consecutive second term as an extra-time goal brought victory for Canada in the final of the Ice Hockey World Championship 2021 at Arena Riga in Latvia on Sunday.

The defending champions became runners-up after they lost to Canada by 2 goals to 3 in the extra time play as the match was draw by 2-2 in the schedule time.

The Finns, who beat Canada in this year group match and in the final in 2019 world championship started the match very well and took lead at the ninth minute in the first period dominating over the Canadians when Mikael Ruohomaa sent puck to the Canadians net.

Canada tried to come back and created pressure on the Finns and both the teams built attacks and counterattacks but the first session ended 1-0.

Fighting from behind the Canadians became more aggressive from the beginning of the second period and Maxime Comtois leveled the core at the 25^th minute.

Finland again started to dominate over the Canadians from the beginning of the third period and took lead again after Petteri Lindbohm defeated the Canadian goaltender and made the second score for the team at the 46^th minute.

The Canadians, who qualified to the quarter-finals luckily became fortunate again as Adam Henrique leveled the score 2-2 just seven minutes before end of the schedule time resulting the match went to the extra time play.

Nick Paul scored at seventh minute of the three-on-three extra-time to bring the gold for Canada.

Earlier, in nine previous matches in the tournament, Finland scored victory against the USA, Norway, Italy, Germany, Latvia and Canada while lost to Kazakhistan in the group matches. They beat the Czech Republic in the quarter-final and Germany in the semi-final.