Finns reach ice hockey final to ensure another Olympics medal

Finland reached to final of the ice hockey in 2022 Winter Olympics after beating Slovakia by 2 goals to 0 in the semi-finals at National Indoor Stadium in Beijing on Friday.

The Finns scored their fifth consecutive victory in the tournament and remain unbeaten to ensured at least one more silver medal for the country.

Finland beat Slovakia 5-3 in the 2010 Olympic bronze medal game, which was their only previous Winter Games meeting, reported Xinhua.

Forward Sakari Manninen scored his fourth goal in Beijing at 15:58, and Harri Pesonen threw the puck into the net without the goalkeeper in the last minute to seal the victory.

"Going to an Olympic final is like a dream. You dream of these kinds of moments, but at the same time (I try to) focus on the right things, not think about it too much and prepare for the next game," Manninen said.

"It (the loss) is a tough pill to swallow. We had them under a lot of pressure but could not score," said Marek Hrivik, the captain of Slovakia.

Finland won the three games including defeating Slovakia 6-2 in the preliminary round and stunned Switzerland 5-1 in the quarterfinals.

The Slovaks got only one win in the preliminary round but smashed Germany 4-0 in the qualification round.

Slovakia equalized with 44 seconds left in the regular time and beat the U.S. 3-2 in shootout in the quarterfinals, and this is the first time since Turin 2006 that neither Canada who was eliminated by Sweden nor the U.S. has advanced to the semifinals.