Ice Hockey IIHF World Championships 2017

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MEN'S UNDER 18

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

2017

 

 

 

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Group B

Sweden 3 - 2 Czech Republic
Period-by-Period: 1-0, 1-1, 1-1
April 15th 2016, h. 19:30, Arena Spisska Nova Ves, Spisska Nova Ves

 

 

Sweden win in Spisska

Gustafsson gets winner for Sweden

 

David Gustafsson's goal at 7:30 of the third broke a 2-2 tie and propelled Sweden to victory over the Czech Republic.

 

The Swedes and Czechs now have indentical records of 1-1. 

 

Jacob Peterson scored just 3:40 into the game to stake the Swedes to the early lead. They had a sensational chance to increase that lead late in the period when the Czechs incurred two minor penalties on the same play.

 

Despite a full two minutes of 5-on-3, however, the Swedes couldn't beat Czech goalie Jakub Skarek, who faced 19 shots in the period (to only five by the Czechs on Adam Ahman).

 

Nevertheless, the Swedes struck early in the second to double their lead when Fabian Zetterlund scored just 35 seconds after the faceoff.

The Czechs got to Ahman at 17:30 when Filip Zadina scored on the power play, and they tied the score at 6:08 of the third thanks to Jan Kern.

 

Just 82 seconds later, however, Gustafsson scored what proved to be the winning goal. 

 

 

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Mens

 

Division III World Championships 2017 in Sofia (BUL)

Day 5 Schedule (16th April 2017)

GMT +3

 

Last Day

 

Gold Medal Match

19:30  Luxembourg vs Bulgaria

 

Bronze Medal Match

16:00  Hong Kong vs Georgia

 

5th Place Match

12:30  South Africa vs Chinese Taipei

 

7th Place Match

10:00  United Arab Emirates vs Bosnia and Herzegovina  5-0 Forfeited

 

*Only The winner of the Gold Medal Match Luxembourg vs Bulgaria will qualify for next years Mens Division II Group B Tournament. All other nations will stay in this Division III also for next year.

 

Livestream

 

 

 

 

Mens

 

Under 18 Top Division World Championships 2017 in Poprad and Spišská Nová Ves (SVK)

Day 4 Schedule (16th April 2017)

GMT +2

 

Group A in Poprad 

19:30  Latvia vs Finland

 

Group B in Spišská Nová Ves

19:30  Belarus vs Sweden

 

Livestream

 

 

 

 

Mens

 

Under 18 Division I Group B World Championships 2017 in Bled (SLO)

Day 2 Schedule (16th April 2017)

GMT +2

 

13:00  Ukraine vs Poland

16:30  Austria vs Slovenia

20:00  Japan vs Italy

 

Livestream

 

 

 

Womens

 

Division I Group A World Championships 2017 in Graz (AUT)

Day 2 Schedule (16th April 2017)

GMT +2

 

13:00  Japan vs Denmark

16:30  France vs Norway

20:00  Austria vs Hungary

 

 

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Here it is. Highlights from yesterdays FANTASTIC match Canada - Slovakia at Under 18 World Championships in Slovakia.

 

Oh Baby ! This is HOCKEY !!!! Fantastic play, Fantastic skills, Fantastic crowd..Simply a true oldie hockey just how we love it

 

Enjoy !!!

 

 

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MEN'S

DIVISION III

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

2017

 

 

 

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7th Place Match

  Bosnia and Herzegovina 0 - 5 United Arab Emirates
Forfeited
April 16th 2017, h. 10:00, Winter Sports Palace, Sofia


5th Place Match

South Africa 7 - 3 Chinese Taipei
Period-by-Period: 3-2, 3-0, 1-1
April 16th 2017, h. 12:30, Winter Sports Palace, Sofia

 

Bronze Medal Match

 

Hong Kong 3 - 14 Georgia
Period-by-Period: 1-6, 1-3, 1-5
April 16th 2017, h. 16:00, Winter Sports Palace, Sofia

 

Gold Medal Match

 

Luxembourg 10 - 4 Bulgaria
Period-by-Period: 3-3, 4-1, 3-0
April 16th 2017, h. 19:30, Winter Sports Palace, Sofia

 

 

 

Luxembourg won the Mens Division III and for the first time in history qualify for a higher division, the Division II Group B tournament, where Luxembourg will replace Turkey relegated team from this years Division IIB played few weeks ago in New Zealand. Luxembourg managed to achieve this historic success thanks a perfect tournament, they won all matches, today in the grand final they even destroyed the host country. Incredible success for Luxembourg. Bravo.

 

Bulgaria the host country has been clearly the top favorit to win the whole thing and return quickly back higher, The plan worked very well untill tonight. A true surprise came in this evening match with a shocking Bulgarian lose to Luxembourg, which means Bulgaria took the silver here and will have to retry their avance battle next year again.

 

Another historic success, Georgia won their first ever IIHF world championships medal, a very valuable bronze for the Georgians. They won 3 of the 5 games in this tournament, they never won more than 2 matches during one tourney, but now they beat all their previous records.

 

4th Place for Hong Kong counting a 2-3 record during the tournament. 5th for South Africa with 3 wins a very nice result for the only African team participating in the IIHF world Championships, 6th finished Chinese Taipei signing 2 wins during their debut, 7th United Arab Emirates the only participating team that didn´t scored a single goal here.

8th and very last of this seasons Mens IIHF WCh program is ranked Bosnia and Herzegovina without playing a single minute, since they unfortunately announced their withdrawal from the tournament just few days before.

 

All teams from 2nd to 8th place will play the lowest IIHF WCh tourney the Division III also next year.

Once again Congrats Luxembourg !!! what an amazing stuff..really didn´t see that comming

 

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Womens

 

Division I Group A World Championships 2017 in Graz (AUT)

Day 2 (16th April 2017)

GMT +2

 

13:00  Japan vs Denmark  3-0

16:30  France vs Norway  0-3

20:00  Austria vs Hungary  4-2

 

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Mens

 

Under 18 Division I Group B World Championships 2017 in Bled (SLO)

Day 2 (16th April 2017)

GMT +2

 

13:00  Ukraine vs Poland  3-2 After OT

16:30  Austria vs Slovenia  4-3

20:00  Japan vs Italy  5-4 After GWS

 

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MEN'S UNDER 18

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

2017

 

 

 

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Group A

Latvia 2 - 7 Finland
Period-by-Period: 1-2, 1-3, 0-2
April 16th 2017, h. 19:30, Poprad Arena, Poprad

 

Finns power along

Ikonen's hat trick guides 7-2 win

 

Latvia put up a good fight, tied the game 2-2 in the second, but in the end penalties were their undoing.

 

In the end, the Finns improved to 3-0 with the win and Latvia dropped its third straight and now have a record of 0-3.

 

"We had pretty high expectations for the tournament," Joni Ikonen said. "It's a good start for us, but we're not surprised."

 

Latvia has a critical game against Slovakia tomorrow. If the Latvians win, they'll avoid the relegation round, but a Slovak win puts the hosts in the quarter-finals and sends Latvia to the best-of-three survival series.

 

"Our goal coming into the tournament was to make the quarter-finals," said Latvia's captain, Deniss Smirnovs. "We still can make it if we win tomorrow. It's a big game."

 

Finland concludes its round robin on Tuesday in a marquee matchup with Canada that might well decide first place in Group A. 

 

Joni Ikonen led the Finns tonight with three goals while Kristian Vesalainen had a goal and three assists. Four Finns lead the scoring parade, Vesalainen in front with eight points in just three games.

 

Finland outshot Latvia, 44-16, but by the midway point of the game it was, 2-2. Power plays were the difference as the Finns scored four goals with the extra man.

 

"We've played together for a lot of years, so we know each other," Ikonen said, explaining how the power play could be so effective with so little practise before the tournament. "It feels easy to play together."

 

"We took too many penalties. That's it," admitted Smirnovs. "We had no discipline. I don't know why. Maybe we were a little tired. This was our third game in four days, all against very good teams."

 

Latvia scored first at 11:59 on its first decent shot on goal. Eero Teravainen made an unwise pinch inside the Latvia blue line to give up an odd-man rush, and Ralfs Vjaters made a great pass to Edgars Petrovs in front. His shot squirted through the pads of Lassi Lehtinen.

 

The Finns responded right away, though, scoring twice in less than a minute to take the lead. Miro Heiskanen had his shot blocked in front, but Urho Vaakanainen was there to snap home the rebound.

 

Ikonen then got his first of the night off the rush, flying through the middle and whipping a long shot between the defencemen that beat Niklavs Rauza cleanly.

 

Latvia made the game interesting when it got the tying goal midway through the second period. Finland turned the puck over at the Latvia blue line, and coming the other way Deniss Smirnovs made a nice feed to Rihards Paskausks, who backhanded a beauty past Lehtinen.

 

No sooner had the Latvians tied the game, though, than they took two quick penalties, and Suomi struck. Enjoying a 5-on-3 for 1:34, they scored twice. Ikonen got the third Finland goal on a great one-timer, and 43 seconds later Jesse Ylonen knocked in a loose puck from the crease. 

 

"Those were big goals," Ikonen said. "We got some energy from those and played better after that."

 

Ikonen added another power-play marker to complete the hat trick in the final minute to make it 5-2.

 

Vesalainen added a sixth goal early in the third and Jesse Ylonen added another late in the period.

 

"They scored on our mistakes in the first half of the game, but when we played better, we took control," Ikonen noted. 

 

 

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MEN'S UNDER 18

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

2017

 

 

 

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Group B

Belarus 2 - 3 Sweden
Period-by-Period: 1-2, 1-0, 0-1
April 16th 2016, h. 19:30, Arena Spisska Nova Ves, Spisska Nova Ves

 

 

Belarus nearly does it

Swedes avoid Spisska shocker in dying seconds

 

Emil Bemstrom scored a power-play goal with only 12 seconds left to give Sweden a 3-2 win over Belarus.

 

The Swedes outshot their opponents by a 52-14 margin, but it was only a late goal that was the difference. Belarus thought it had cleared the zone to force an overtime, but Rickard Hugg kept the puck in and found Bemstrom wide open in front of the goal.

 

Bemstrom's quick shot beat Andrei Grishenko, who was sensational in goal for the losers.

 

As a result, Sweden improves its record to 2-1 while Belarus is still looking for its first win after three games. 

 

Sweden has now beaten Belarus in all six U18 meetings, but none closer than tonight's nail-biter.

 

Belarus now has a do-or-die game with Russia tomorrow. If it wins in regulation, and Russia loses again on Tuesday to the Czechs, Belarus advances to the quarter-finals. Anything less and it will be Belarus going to the relegation round from Group B.

 

Sweden, last year's silver medallists, now has a day off before finishing its round robin on Tuesday against the United States, bronze-medal winners a year ago. 

 

The Swedes struck for two goals in the first four minutes of tonight's game, suggesting a whalloping was in the works. David Gustafsson scored just 1:12 into the game and Kalle Miketinac made it 2-0 at 4:09.

 

But there was to be no whalloping. Despite badly outshooting Belarus, it was the underdogs who managed to cut the lead in half at 12:38 when Vladislav Yeryomenko scored. Shots were 17-2 after 20 minutes. Goals were just 2-1.

 

Midway through the second, Artyom Baltruk managed to tie the game, and Belarus played a game of cat-and-mouse the rest of the night. The Swedes dominated, controlled play, and had most of the puck possession, but they couldn't beat Grishenko.

 

And then, with only 1:30 left in regulation, Baltruk took a tripping penalty. His teammates did a great job killing it off, but then the fatal final few seconds resulted in Bemstrom's goal, a Belarus loss, and no points in the standings.

 

 

 

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Mens

 

Under 18 Top Division World Championships 2017 in Poprad and Spišská Nová Ves (SVK)

Day 5 Schedule (17th April 2017)

GMT +2

 

Group A in Poprad

15:30  Canada vs Switzerland 

19:30  Slovakia vs Latvia

 

Group B in Spišská Nová Ves

15:30  United States vs Czech Republic

19:30  Russia vs Belarus

 

Livestream

 

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MEN'S

DIVISION III

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

2017

 

 

 

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First gold for Luxembourg

Team beats host Bulgaria for Division III title

First tournament win ever: Luxembourg celebrates after beating host Bulgaria in the gold medal game of the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division III.

 

Luxembourg, one of the smallest countries in the world, was triumphant after the final game of the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division III. The Winter Palace in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia was voiced with chants and emotional outbursts from the winner’s locker room for long after the last buzzer and the closing ceremony. And it was a well-deserved celebration.

For the first time in history Luxembourg won an IIHF event. Beating Bulgaria for the Division III gold also means Luxembourg will play at Division II for the first time since 2004 when the tea was relegated.

In the final for the gold medals Luxembourg defeated the host Bulgaria 10-4 as three players had two goals and one assist (Benny Welter, Miroslav Mosr and Thierry Beran) and the goalie Philippe Lepage made 57 saves!

“We came here to win it all. We believed that we can do it and were fighting for the whole 60 minutes. For Luxembourg this is unbelievable success. Our goal for next year is to keep our place in Division II Group B,” said Petr Fical, the jubilant head coach of Luxembourg, after the closing ceremony.

Eight teams were supposed to participate in the tournament using a new format with two round-robin groups followed by the cross-over semi-finals and placement games. Unfortunately Bosnia & Herzegovina withdrew from the championship just a few days before the start of the tournament leaving Group A with just three teams. The schedule was played as planned, however all Bosnia & Herzegovina games were count as forfeited (5-0 win for the opposing team).

Bulgaria finished first in Group A with wins over Chinese Taipei (3-0) and Hong Kong (10-3) and Luxembourg was the winner of Group B after defeating the United Arab Emirates (17-0), Georgia (6-4) and South Africa (3-1). In the semifinals the hosts beat against Georgia, 9-3, and Luxembourg routed Hong Kong, 8-1.

This was just the second competition in Division III for Bulgaria since the introduction of the new IIHF categorization in 2001. The previous one was in 2014, when the tournament was in Luxembourg and Bulgaria was undefeated and gain back its place in Division II. In the first day of that event Bulgaria beat the hosts in a roller-coaster. Luxembourg was leading 4-3 and 5-4 after getting back from 0-3. In the end Bulgaria won 8-5. There was just one more match-up between the two countries on the men’s level in the past World Championships – a 17-2 win for Bulgaria in 2002 in the Division II Group B. So the expectations of the crowd of 950 spectators at the Winter Palace were very high for a home success, but there were some concerns regarding Bulgarian defence.

The start was quite a positive one for Bulgaria’s “Lions” as Miroslav Vasilev scored at 2:15 after a great pass from Stanislav Muhachev. Thierry Beran tied the score two minutes later, but Alexei Yotov and Georgi Iskrenov tallied for 3-1 lead at 15:15. Once again a defensive mishap led to a Luxembourg’s goal just 32 seconds later. The first period finished 3-3 and the turnaround continued in the second as Kai Linster scored on a power play to give Luxembourg its first lead in the game, 4-3.

“I don’t know why, but our team was tired already in the second period. They didn’t have energy anymore. What are the reasons for that? Maybe they are not used to play so many games in a week or train so hard. In the same time Luxembourg played smart, they were just getting the puck out of their zone, without any risks and were waiting for opportunities. It’s a disappointing night for sure. We had many chances, but couldn’t score,” said Daniel Cuomo, the head coach for the host nation.

Bulgaria had its chance to tie on a penalty shot after Ronny Scheier, the captain of the Luxembourger team for the 13th straight World Championship, was penalized for falling on the puck in the goal crease. In this crucial moment there was a long delay as the official didn’t let the shot to be taken by Muhachev. In the end Ivan Hodulov took the responsibility, but couldn’t beat Lepage, who made 24 saves just in the second period and had the game of his life.

Three minutes later Yotov scored after a crisp breakaway pass from Muhachev, when their team was shorthanded and the crowd was enthusiastic again. But not for long as Luxembourg finished the period with a 7-4 lead after three more goals by Benny Welter, Miroslav Mosr and Francois Schons. The last one in this sequence was on a two-man advantage following consecutive penalties to Iskrenov and Muhachev.

“Mentally we were very strong. We didn’t panic at all after being two goals behind. It was very important to comeback quick and we were able to do it. The key moment was when we scored the sixth and the seventh goal. These goals broke the opponent down,” said Czech-born Petr Fical, who played for Germany at the 2006 Olympic Games and at World Championships in the period 2005-08. Bulgaria’s coach Cuomo had the same opinion: “The 6-4 goal was the crucial one. I could see the effect that it had on the bench, the body language of the players.”

There were small signs of hopes in the first part of the third period, but Bulgaria couldn’t score on two power plays and then everything went downfall with new ostentatious examples of lack of discipline.

“Nowadays hockey is built on good defencemen, who can carry the puck. It’s not a secret that we have problems in this regard. We have veteran defencemen who are not in great shape. On top of that when something goes wrong, we are losing the whole structure, we indulge in disappointment and the penalties are coming,” explained Cuomo.

At 51:06 Mosr capitalized on another two-man advantage and just 104 seconds later Thierry Beran made it 9-4. The last goal was scored on an empty net by his father Robert Beran, who finished the historic journey with most points (19, 6+13) for Luxembourg and was voted as the best forward of the tournament. The 47-year-old Robert Beran hails from Slovakia but has been based in Luxembourg since the early 1990s and was even the national team’s head coach at the 2000 World Championship D-Pool.

“It was a wonderful week for me and Luxembourg hockey. To share this moment with my son and so many players that I had coached from the scratch is just a dream come true,” said Robert Beran, who works in a construction company besides being a coach and a player. He has also a younger son, who is 15 years old. It’s one more motivation for Robert to keep playing: “Soon we will be able to complete a full Beran forward line for the national team.“

“To be honest, I expected a closer game, but today we played great hockey, great defence too. The key for us was the team effort. The whole week we had awesome team work, we worked hard for each other – on the ice, outside of the ice. It was unbelievable experience. Our general manager Alain Schneider did a great job. He organized two exhibition games and got the team together earlier. And we won even though there are some players who couldn’t come to Sofia, because they are working and couldn’t take a leave-of-absence from their jobs,” explained Fical, who is in his second year as a Luxembourg’s head coach.

So far the best showing from the small nation (570,252 population; 399 registered players) in Division III play had been a second-place finish in 2003, last year they finished fourth. But in 2003 there were just three teams in the group and Luxembourg won against Turkey and lost to New Zealand. From the 77 IIHF members only Andorra, Iceland and Liechtenstein have a smaller population than Luxembourg.

It’s interesting to know that Luxembourg became an IIHF member on 23 March 1912, along Sweden, as the 10th and 11th members since its founding. The World Championship debut was almost on the day 80 years later though and the second participation came in 2000. On 21 March 1992 Luxembourg lost its first official game in Johannesburg against host South Africa, 23-0.

Since 2002 Luxembourg is a regular part of the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship program in the men’s category and in the last 10 years had eight bronze medals in the Division III and two fourth-place finishes. In Sofia, Luxembourg not only had its first gold medal in any tournament but set national records for wins (5) and goals allowed in one tournament (10).

 

 

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