Comment | Sweden always disappoints – the World Cup gets the best possible climax

Prague

Skin hairs stood up on Saturday afternoon at Prague’s O2 arena. 18,000 spectators jumped several times at the same time. And sang at the same time. Even the beer was spilled.

The atmosphere was infernal when the Czech Republic beat Tre Kronor in the World Cup semi-final in front of their home crowd.

At the beginning of the second period Ondrej Kaše, Martin Necas and Dominik Kubalik scored three goals in less than three minutes and took the Czech Republic to a 5–2 lead. Českomoravská’s horn boiler shook and the roof creaked.

The NHL guard crumbled in the storm of screams Filip Gustafsson was replaced in the middle of a raid away from Sweden’s goal. Than Tommy Salo in Hartwall-arena in 2003. This time, however, Sweden did not emerge from it.

Already on Thursday, in the quarter-final against Finland, NHL stars Tre Kronor showed signs of danger. At that time, it still managed above all thanks to its brilliant and fighting strong individuals, but on Saturday By Sam Hallam the problems of the crew’s ragged fives game flashed before the eyes.

Does anyone still remember Sweden as a team that stretched to its best in a tight spot? That image should be ditched. Sweden always disappoints these days. After 2018, this was the first time in general that Tre Kronor even reached the top four – and it had the toughest material of the Games at its disposal.

Having smelled blood, the Czech Republic pounced on the swaying giant like a hound dog – and the fanatical crowd incited the home team to an incredible performance.

In the end, the Czech Republic defeated Sweden with a score of 7–3.

“Like a little boy’s dream come true. Every kid who plays yard games dreams of this,” the Czech defenseman Radko Gudas atmosphere after the semi-final.

“It’s incredible how this audience is behind us,” he continued.

Host country advancing to the final is the best possible climax to this spring’s World Championships.

In general, playing the host country in the World Cup final is rare. In the last 30 years, such a situation has been seen only four times: 2022 Finland (gold), 2013 Sweden (gold), 2008 Canada (silver) and 1995 Sweden (silver).

The Czech Republic now deserves to experience this extraordinary situation for the first time since the 1985 Games in Prague, when Czechoslovakia beat Canada in the final and celebrated the World Cup gold in front of their home crowd.

The Czech Republic the passionate puck audience has made this spring’s WC tournament an exceptionally wonderful event. In every Czech match, the atmosphere has been deafening, but even more wonderful and surprising has been the avalanche of the Czech audience to all other matches as well.

Even the meetings between the Lilliput countries have always had at least 15,000 spectators in the O2 arena.

The all-time audience record for WC hockey will be broken in these games. Coincidentally, the previous record of 741,000 spectators was from the previous Games in the Czech Republic in 2015. This country is the home of the World Cup.

A millennium for the Czech Republic, which dominated the puck world around the turn of the century, success and charm like this is rare nowadays. The last time the country played in the World Cup final was in 2010, when it also won its previous World Cup gold.

The Czech Republic returned to medals after a ten-year dry season in the spring of 2022 in Tampere Kari Jalonen in coaching.

Last year’s tournament ended with a heart attack under Jalonen, but he managed to bring a lot of Finnish influences to the playing of the Czech national team during his two-year absence.

Washed out as head coach for this season Radim Rulík58, has brought his own spices to the soup prepared by Jalonen and raised the Czech Republic to a new level.

Although The Czech Republic has received a lot of extra energy from its home crowd, its place in the finals is by no means just a sensational charm.

Even the opening match of this tournament against Leijon showed how disciplined and a great team the Czech Republic is. The Czech Republic practically robbed Leijon with Finland’s own weapons.

In their five matches against other top countries in the tournament, the Czech Republic has conceded only eight goals. The last lock of the brilliantly defending team is the sparkling 23-year-old NHL guard Lukáš Dostál – who won the SM league’s best goalkeeper award in Ilves in 2020.

As shown by the seven goals scored in the Swedish net in the semi-final, the Czech Republic also has a merciless attacking power – not forgetting the good old Czech fast counter-attacks.

Rulik’s Czech Republic is a really versatile team.

At the beginning of the tournament, the Czech Republic played a tough game. It waited until the last moment for confirmation from the NHL playoffs, and that’s where the jackpot came from. The Boston duo David Pastrňák and Pavel Zacha and Carolina’s Nečas joined to strengthen the team only at the end of the initial group stage and raised the Czech decision-making power to a whole new level.

On Sunday in the World Cup final starting at 9:20 p.m., the Czech Republic will face Switzerland, who defeated Canada 3–2 in Saturday night’s semi-final after the winning goal contest.

The Czech Republic and Switzerland have never met in a World Cup final, and Switzerland has never won the World Cup.

Despite their ecstasy, the Czech Republic still has unused cylinders in its mighty machinery.

The country’s superior number one star, Pastrňák, who scored 110 points in the NHL this season, has been far from his best on the World Cup ice so far. During three matches, he has not scored a single point yet.

Neither do the other two top NHL players, Zacha and Ondrej Palatdidn’t even score a point in Saturday’s shootout.

If this trio still manages to catch the end of the plot on Sunday night, judging by the previous atmosphere of the tournament, Prague’s O2 arena might see the World Cup gold party of all time.