Canada foil Lions´ WC dream

Defending champion Finland had to end their title race as they lost to defending runners-up Canada in the quarterfinals of the Ice Hockey World Championship 2023 at the Nokia Arena in Tampere late Thursday night.

The early exit of the Lions who became champion twice and runners-up one time in the last three consecutive world championships broke the hearts of thousands of Finns at the home ground when they were defeated to Canada by 4 goals to 1.

Although the match result showed a clear victory for Canada, the game performance was different as the Finns dominated substantial spells and created several opportunities but failed to score accordingly resulting the defeat in a big margin.

Canadian goalkeeper Samuel Montembeault showed an extraordinary performance and saved several goals to take the defending runners-up to the semi-finals of the tournament.

The Lions clearly dominated over the Canadians and created pressure from the very beginning but a sudden goal by Jack Quinn from a counter-attack took lead for Canada at the eighth minute of the match.

When the Lions were trying to level the score and created pressure on the opponent players repeatedly another goal by Samuel Blais from a counter-attack at the 31^st minute widened the gap.

The two goals, however, failed to discourage the Finns and they tried to comeback but the third goal by Michael Carcone reduced the possibility of victory for the Lions.

Finland started to play empty-net in most of the last five minutes and Teemu Hartikainen scored at the 57^th minute but Tyler Toffoli's empty-net goal at the 58^th minute ensured the 4-1 victory for Canada.

Meanwhile, in another quarterfinal in Riga, Latvia beat another title favourite Sweden by 3-1 while Germany beat group-B champion Switzerland by 3-1 to reach semi-finals.

Earlier on the day, USA beat Czech Republic by three goals to nil at Nokia Arena.

USA will face Germany and Canada will face Latvia in the semi-finals at Nokia Arena in Tampere on Saturday.