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ROAD TO BEIJING 2022 Latvia books its trip to Beijing Latvia is heading to the Olympics. A 2-1 victory over France in Sunday’s decisive Group E game sends the Baltic nation to Beijing for its fifth appearance in the last six Games. Goals from Rihards Bukarts and Miks Indrasis did the damage for Latvia tonight, putting the home team into a 2-0 lead and triggering a party atmosphere in Arena Riga. But Stephane da Costa scored late for France – the first goal Latvia allowed in the whole tournament – and set up an anxious finale before the hooter ended Les Bleus’ Olympic dream. "We were here for one thing only," said head coach Harijs Vitolins. "Our goal was to win this qualification, and we did it." It was a simple equation in the final game in Riga: victory – any kind of victory – would book a ticket to Beijing; defeat meant staying home next February. France continued with Henri-Corentin Buysse in goal, a slightly surprising choice ahead of Florian Hardy, as head coach Philippe Bozon went with the team that defeated Italy 2-0 on Friday. Latvia unveiled a new top line, with Ronalds Kenins and Rodrigo Abols joining Rudolfs Balcers on the strike trio after a prolific display against Hungary. That meant Lauris Darzins dropped to the second line, with captain Teodors Blugers on the third. However, the D-core that went 120 minutes without allowing a goal against Italy or Hungary remained unchanged in front of goalie Ivars Punnenovs. And Punnenovs, who was just nine minutes away from going through the entire competition without allowing a goal, paid tribute to the hard work that went on in front of him throughout all three games. "The guys blocked all the shots that might go in," he said. "They did an amazing job. It wasn't just the defensive guys, it was the forwards too. "We scored a lot of goals in our first two games and tonight we had chances to score more. We played a helluva game and the best team won." These nations have previous at this stage: in 2013 there was a similar showdown to book a ticket to Sochi. That time, France jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first period before Latvia saved itself by taking the game to overtime. In 2021, the host nation was determined to avoid any similar alarms and the crowd in Arena Riga – large and loud – was treated to an intense, face-paced battle from the first seconds. The opening goal came midway through the first period, and it all stemmed from defensive misfortune. Sacha Treille, so effective at the other end of the ice, saw his cross-ice pass to Antonin Manavian in the corner take a crazy bounce off the boards. Rihards Bukarts was quick to pounce, seizing possession and charging to the crease to put the puck over Buysse’s shoulder for 1-0. "I guess the hockey gods weren't with us tonight," reflected French head coach Philippe Bozon. "We expected Latvia to come out strong and fast and we were trying to calm down the tempo of the game at the beginning. "I thought we did a good job of that, but then we were beaten by a bad bounce that put the puck right on their player's stick." There was no let-up in the intensity in the second period. France started on the power play, but almost gifted Latvia a short-handed goal when Blugers stole the puck away from Florian Chakiachvili only to be denied by Buysse. After surviving that scare, the French picked up momentum but was unable to breach the Latvian penalty kill. Back at equal strength, though, the home team was unable to reimpose itself on the game. Nerves were beginning to fray in the arena as France patiently probed in front of Punnenovs’ net. Midway through the frame we saw big chances at both ends, with Charles Bertrand screwing his shot wide of the target when space opened up for him in the middle of the Latvian zone. Immediately play broke to the other end, where Abols was denied by a last-gasp poke check that got just enough to take the puck away as the forward lined up his shot. That exchange ushered in a stronger finish to the middle session for the host, with Buysse twice grateful to his goalposts as first Andris Dzerins and then Kaspars Daugavins went close to doubling the lead. France withstood the pressure and went into the second intermission with just one goal to make up. One became two, though, when Romain Bault sat for high-sticking. The Latvian power play came up with a killer goal when Indrasis burst through a gap between Manavian and Antoine Roussel. That put him face-to-face with Buysse and the Latvian forward’s backhand flick did just enough to wobble its way over the goalie’s pad and into the net Indrasis celebrated like it was a gold-medal goal, knowing that his team’s defensive excellence this weekend made a two-goal lead into a daunting advantage. But the impregnable Punnenovs was beaten at last with 8:45 on the clock when Stephane da Costa wired a shot over the goalie’s pad when space opened for him. That set up a nerve-jangling finale. The game became stretched, space emerged in both ends and there were half chances for both teams. Then Damien Fleury went agonisingly close to a tying goal and as Latvia scrambled to clear, a penalty on Blugers enabled France to go 6-on-4 for the closing seconds. Les Bleus camped in the offensive zone, carefully trying to fashion the chance that could save the game, but Latvia held on to book that much-prized ticket to Beijing. For Vitolins, though, qualification is just the beginning. "We want to continue," he said. "We remember how Germany won in qualifiying here last time and went all the way to the final, they only lost to the Russian team. Now we want to keep going and we hope we can get to the next level." IIHF.COM

100 %. We had only 12 players from our league in Salt Lake because the NHLers were available only from the 2nd round, our GM however succeded thanks his conections with some NHL GMs to allow players to come for a match and return back to their club, I will never forget Stumpel, Demitra and Palffy after last night NHL game travelling the whole USA the morning, arrive the early evening to Salt Lake, totally exhausted played a match at the Olympics and the same night returned to their NHL team to play the next day there... We lost all 3 games despite having one fantatsic team but not allowed to play, some guys arrived our last match but could not make it to ice in time, so just were in the stands to see how we lost to Austria and were eliminated... We were allowed to play with the full team only for the 13th place match against France, we won 7-1 with some 60 shots on goal difference or so...we were so pissed there that the same year we baceame three months later world champions with our full team...the next lobby from our governing bodies helped and in Torino the NHLers were allowed to play during the whole tournament

ROAD TO BEIJING 2022 Denmark off to Olympics 75 years is a long time to wait for anything. Denmark joined the IIHF in 1946, and since then has never reached the Olympic Games. That time is over after the Danes defeated rivals Norway 2-0 in the deciding game of the Final Olympic Qualification Group F tournament, earning their first-ever trip to the pinnacle of international ice hockey. Forward Frederik Storm scored the game winner and goaltender Sebastian Dahm posted a 26-save shutout against the Norwegians to help drive their team to a historic qualification. "It's huge," said Storm after the game. "We hav esuch a good group here and we finally managed to succeed adn qualify. I've played in three qualificaiton tournaments and we never made it before, so to do it with this group is amazing." "I'm just so relieved, we have been chasing this for years," said Dahm. The game started fast and furious with end-to-end action through the opening period, although no pucks ended up in the net. The game within the game was without a doubt the goaltending duel between Henrik Haukeland for Norway and Dahm, with neither netminder giving up a score through nearly two periods despite serious pressure at both ends of the ice. Denmark nearly went down early when Sebastian Dahm’s clearing attempt was intercepted in the Danish zone, giving up a wide-open scoring opportunity that was saved by a diving block from Jesper Jensen Aabo. At the other end, in the second period Henrik Haukeland had to stand tall on two breakaway opportunities by Denmark to keep the score at 0-0. But the breakthrough finally came with just over two minutes left in the second period, when Markus Lauridsen spotted the Norwegian defence out of position from his own zone and rifled a pass up to Frederik Storm waiting in the Norwegian end. Storm gained possession and outraced defenceman Erlend Lesund to the goal, beating Haukeland between the legs for the 1-0 lead. The Danes kept up the offensive pressure in the final frame, while at the other end locking up Norway and preventing the home team from getting any quality scoring chances. Then it would be their star player Nikolaj Ehlers who would put the game on ice with another breakaway score on a great pass form Frans Nielsen with 3:12 remaining, sending Denmark into the Olympic Games and a new tier of elite ice hockey. IIHF.COM

BEIJING 2022 GROUPS GROUP A Canada China Germany United States GROUP B Czech Republic Denmark ROC Switzerland GROUP C Finland Latvia Slovakia Sweden

Absolutely, now they added two more teams for the womens hockey which is really silly, considering how non competitive it is, instead they easily can add even 4 more teams to the mens tournament, the second tier of this sport is now so even and competitive that it is simply unfair to have only 12 teams in basically one of the only 2 team sports of the whole games (and hockey is arguably the most popular and phare sport of the winter olympics) Really sad for this french generation esecially Bellemare who will probably never had the chance to represent his country at the games, in other hand the likes of Texier or Roussel can still aim for Cortina.

ROAD TO BEIJING 2022 FINAL QUALIFYING ROUND LAST DAY RESULTS Group D Central European Summer Time (GMT +2) Austria 4 - 1 Poland Period-by-Period: 2-1, 1-0, 1-0 August 29th 2021, h. 13:30, Ondrej Nepela Arena, Bratislava Slovakia 2 - 1 Belarus Period-by-Period: 1-0, 0-1, 1-0 August 29th 2021, h. 17:30, Ondrej Nepela Arena, Bratislava Group D Final Standing Nation P W(OTW) L(OTL) GF GA +/- Pt. Slovakia 3 3(0) 0(0) 9 3 +6 9 Belarus 3 1(0) 2(0) 6 5 +1 3 Austria 3 1(0) 2(0) 7 8 -1 3 Poland 3 1(0) 2(0) 3 9 -6 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Group E Eastern European Sumer Time (GMT +3) Hungary 2 - 1 Italy Period-by-Period: 0-0, 1-0, 1-1 August 29th 2021, h. 13:00, Arena Riga, Riga Latvia 2 - 1 France Period-by-Period: 1-0, 0-0, 1-1 August 29th 2021, h. 17:00, Arena Riga, Riga Group E Final Standing Nation P W(OTW) L(OTL) GF GA +/- Pt. Latvia 3 3(0) 0(0) 17 1 +16 9 France 3 2(0) 1(0) 8 5 +3 6 Hungary 3 1(0) 2(0) 5 15 -10 3 Italy 3 0(0) 3(0) 1 10 -9 0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Group F Central European Summer Time (GMT +2) Slovenia 4 - 1 South Korea Period-by-Period: 0-1, 3-0, 1-0 August 29th 2021, h. 12:00, Jordal Amfi, Oslo Norway 0 - 2 Denmark Period-by-Period: 0-0, 0-1, 0-1 August 29th 2021, h. 16:00, Jordal Amfi, Oslo Group F Final Standing Nation P W(OTW) L(OTL) GF GA +/- Pt. Denmark 3 3(0) 0(0) 17 4 +13 9 Norway 3 2(0) 1(0) 11 7 +4 6 Slovenia 3 1(0) 2(0) 11 12 -1 3 South Korea 3 0(0) 3(0) 3 19 -16 0 Nations Qualified to the Mens Ice Hockey Tournament at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games Canada China Czech Republic Denmark Finland Germany Latvia ROC Slovakia Sweden Switzerland United States

Well, BLR had better (more experienced, much much more experienced) roster and played very well, not many our players from this team had experiences with this kind of 7th play-off match style. We have 3 U18 in the team ! the youngest roster of the tournament, despite what people said we never was real favorites, our only advantage was the full house of fans cheering and pushing the youngs to the triumph. Definitely was not expected. rather nice surprise to beat this BLR team.

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! Fuck yeah !

and Congrats for the return to the Olympics after missing PC 2018 - 2-1

Congrats for the very first historic qualification for the Mens Ice Hockey Olympics tournament - 0-2

Could not update, too much stressed with our game... but is 2-0 ahead 2 minutes to go. 56:48 Nikolaj Ehlers made it two goals lead. Latvia 2-1 against France. 2 minutes to go. Miks Indrašis 2-0 and Steven Da Costa 2-1

After 2nd periods - 1-0 & - 0-1

37:49 Frederik Storm opened the score in Oslo. - 0-1

After 1st periods - 1-0 & - 0-0

Latvia opened the score in Riga. 10:56 Rihards Bukarts 1-0

- & - just started.

Line-up for the final decisive game. No changes this time, same roster as against Poland.

The same format as here will be in Beijing this time. 10 teams, 2 groups of 5. Group a with the top 5 seeded teams qualify for the QF, The first 3 teams from Group B will join them in the play-offs. 1A-3B, 2A-2B, 3A-1B, 4A-5A So exactly the same situation can happen again just maybe this time CZE may face for example SUI or ROC in the quarterfinals

ROAD TO BEIJING 2022 It’s Norway vs. Denmark for an Olympic prize The Norwegians took care of business on home ice in Olso, defeating Slovenia for their second win to set up a finale against Denmark with everything on the line at the Final Olympic Qualification Group F. “Ever since my first game playing with the national team we’ve always been battling with the Danes,” said Andreas Martinsen. “I think the team they have now is the best team they’ve ever had, it’s going to be a big test and a good game and that’s what we wanted, to play in a final against them." Ken Andre Olimb and Mats Rosseli Olsen each had a goal and two assists to lead the Norwegians to their second straight win. Just as in their opening game against Denmark, Slovenia did not get off to a good start, taking a penalty three seconds into the game. The Norwegians broke through at 13:56, with Martin Roymark shooting the puck on net, getting it back from his teammate Eirik Salsten on the rebound for a second shot that went past Gasper Kroselj for the opening score. Then following some intense forecheck pressure by Norway behind the Slovenian net, the puck came out to Christian Kaasastul, who shot on net and had it deflected by a Slovene player on the way for the 2-0 lead. The goal prompted head coach Matjaz Kopitar to pull Kroselj in favour of Luka Gracnar. “We had another rough start,” said Robert Sabolic. “We were underdogs going into this game and it’s not easy to get back into the game against a team like that.” But Slovenia’s hole grew deeper not long after that. While on a power play, captain Anze Kopitar was unable to keep a pass inside the Norway zone, allowing Mats Roselli Olsen and Ken Andre Olimb to jump out on a breakaway, Olsen feeding Olimb for his second goal of the tournament. To their credit, Slovenia did almost manage to get back into the game. The Slovenes got themselves on the scoresheet while on another power play, with Gregorc Blaz jumping on a loose puck following a scramble in the slot area to cut the lead to 3-1. Then with six minutes left Kopitar fed Robert Sabolic with a pass from the high slot to the side of the net, Sabolic roofing it in to trim Norway’s lead to 3-2. But Norway got back up by two goals just under five minutes into the second when Ken-Andre Olimb was tripped up by Jan Urbas on a breakaway, giving the Norwegians a penalty shot that would be taken by their star player Mats Zuccarello. Zuccarello skated up slowly to the goalie, paused and then snapped a shot through the five-hole to give his team a 4-2 lead to the delight of the home crowd. Norway’s defence clamped down after Zuccarello’s goal, allowing just a handful of shots on net and none of them very challenging for goalie Henrik Haukeland. But the Norwegian goalie did have to stand on his head for a sequence midway through the frame, making four saves in quick succession culminating in a cross-crease robbery on a seemingly open shot from the side of the net by Sabolic. Then it was the Olimb brothers combining to give their country a big goal late in the 2nd, with Ken Andre Olimb taking advantage of a lapse in the Slovenia defence to feed the puck cross ice to his waiting older brother Mathis for the 5-2 lead. The younger Olimb would assist on another score with 27 seconds to go, his shot on net ending up on the stick of teammate for the commanding four-goal lead going into the third. Down by four goals in the third, Slovenia made things a little tense for the Norwegians. Dany Sabolic cut into the Norway lead with a blast from the right circle on the power play four minutes into the frame. Then his teammate Klemen Pretnar took advantage of a defensive breakdown finding Kristjan Cepon wide open with a pass to cut the lead to 4-2. But the Norwegians put their foot down with 4:12 remaining, a clean faceoff win by Michael Haga in the Slovenia zone allowed the puck to come to Christian Kaasastul who fired it home for the 7-4 lead. The result puts a spot in the 2022 Olympic Winter Games within reach for the Norwegians. Standing in the way is their number one rivals Denmark, who have been unstoppable through two games so far in this qualification tournament. The game takes place Sunday evening in Oslo. IIHF.COM

ROAD TO BEIJING 2022 Riga ready for 2013 repeat We’ve been here before. In 2013, Riga was the venue as Latvia played France for a place at the Winter Olympics in Sochi. On that occasion, the equation was complicated by Team Kazakhstan, which defeated France in the opening game before falling to Latvia. The final reckoning had three teams with a chance of qualifying: a point against the French would be enough for Latvia, a two-goal win would send France to Sochi. A one-goal French victory, though, would give Kazakhstan an Olympic place. A capacity crowd packed into Arena Riga, most of them hoping to see Latvia qualify for the Games for the fourth time in a row. France, bidding for a first Olympics since 2002, had other ideas. Damien Fleury, back here in 2021 as captain of Les Bleus, opened the scoring on a third-minute power play; Laurent Meunier extended the lead late in the first period. Suddenly, with a two-goal advantage, the French had one foot on the plane to Sochi and Latvia was facing Madame Guillotine. That passionate home crowd was anxious. Their heroes had chances, but twice failed to beat Cristobal Huet on the power play and the French defence remained strong throughout the second period. But, with the pressure building on the home team, a moment of magic from Lauris Darzins changed everything. At the time, he was a 28-year-old star of the KHL and he finished this tournament as Latvia’s leading scorer. But the individual effort he produced five minutes before the end of the second period was his biggest moment, collecting the puck in his own zone and streaking off to the races before faking a shot and beating Huet – at last – with a wrister. Latvia’s ebullient head coach Ted Nolan described it as “an NHL goal” in the post-game press conference. The 2-1 scoreline was welcomed in Kazakhstan, but no good to either team on the ice. Then the first shift of the third period gave Latvia what it needed. Darzins was involved again, firing in a shot that Huet blocked only for Martins Karsums to put away the rebound. Then it was game management time. France needed two goals; Latvia allowed just six shots at Edgars Masalskis. An overtime winner for Pierre-Eduard Bellemare was scant consolation for the French as the home crowd celebrated a defeat that felt like a victory. Eight years on ... Since that day in February 2013, both nations have undergone a change of generations. However, for the French, the memory of simultaneously winning and losing still stings. Sacha Treille played in that game, and he’s ready to do everything to rewrite the script this time around. “It’s a different scenario from last time,” he said after his goals saw Les Bleus to a 2-0 win over Italy. “We know that a win, even in overtime, will be enough. “We’ll go into this game as if it was our last. There’s an enormous hunger. We know the arena will be full, but that just motivates us even more. We have to cut out any errors, everyone has to play his best hockey. Then we have a chance.” French head coach Philippe Bozon is also looking forward to the challenge of taking his country to its first Games since 2002, when he was on the team in Salt Lake City. “Everyone’s well motivated,” he said after that 2-0 win over Italy. “We knew what the challenge was going to be, we wanted to be in this position on Sunday and we’re right there. We are 60, maybe 65 minutes away from what we want.” Latvia’s proud run of Olympic appearances was halted four years ago when Germany got the verdict in the final qualification round in Riga. Since then, a new generation has emerged to lead the national team – and they are desperate to make it to Beijing. “This is huge,” said Rudolfs Balcers, who was a 15-year-old playing junior hockey in Norway when Latvia got past France in 2013. “There’s one mission for us. We’re playing at home and we have a goal to win and go to the Olympics. “We’re trying to get better here every day and it’s going to be a huge one against France.” Latvian head coach Harijs Vitolins has plenty of Olympic history: in 2018 he was an assistant coach on the golden OAR roster, having earlier served a similar role on Latvia’s 2006 and 2010 teams. Unexpectedly catapulted into the hot seat a month before this tournament, he believes France poses the biggest threat to a side that has yet to allow a goal in Riga this week. “The pick of the French team is its NHL trio, plus they also have players from Switzerland’s top league,” Vitolins said. “They themselves say that this is the last chance for their strongest roster [to go to the Olympics]. “We’ve seen that they have a good power play, so we need to play with the same discipline we showed [against Hungary], where we never had to use our penalty kill. “We’ll spend Saturday looking at the details that need some attention. We have a bit of time to look at everything and decide on our tactics against France.” IIHF.COM

ROAD TO BEIJING 2022 Slovakia & Belarus ready to battle Heading into the final day of play in Group D of the Men’s Final Olympic Qualification Tournament, there are two teams still in the race and they face off against each other, but the playing field isn’t level. The Slovaks, playing on their home ice, need just one point to punch their ticket to Beijing. Belarus, on the other hand, will need to win in regulation time. How the teams got here The Slovaks are in the driver’s seat after taking the maximum six points from their first two games. While they had a decisive edge in play in both games, they beat Austria 2-1 and then only led Poland 1-0 after one period before finally starting to produce in period two and eventually winning 5-1. Head coach Craig Ramsay wasn’t pleased by his team’s execution over its first four periods of play, trying to make fancy plays rather than keeping it simple. “You can never expect it to be an easy game,” he said after beating Poland. “If you do, it will always be a long, challenging night. If you don't score goals easily, you get tougher right away. In the end, we were able to score a few goals today.” Belarus had a similar problem in its first game against Poland and, despite dominating 46-18 in shots, lost 1-0. Then, after falling behind 2-0 in the first period against Austria, the Belarusians were in a desperate situation and scored five second period goals to win 5-2. “I didn’t shout at the guys. I just calmly told them that they represented their country and they had to represent it correctly,” Belarusian head coach Craig Woodcroft said about the first intermission of the Austria game. “I also said that they are all very strong players, they are also strong in heart, and it is that heart that must lead us now. There is no room for excuses, everyone is well prepared and obliged to take on the role of leader.” Slovakia has the only three players in the tournament with more than two points – defenceman Peter Ceresnak with four and forward Libor Hudacek and defenceman Martin Gernat with three each. After being held off the scoresheet entirely their first four periods, Belarus got two points each from captain Yegor Sharangovich, Shane Prince, Andrei Stas and Nikita Komarov. Bronislav Konrad of Slovakia and Danny Taylor of Belarus have played both games for their teams so far and are expected to get the call in goal again on Sunday. History The Belarusians look to return to the Olympics for the first time since 2010, which was their third appearance. The Slovaks are looking to avoid missing for the first time since first qualifying in 1994. Both teams’ best-ever Olympic finish was fourth place – Belarus in 2002 in Salt Lake City following a huge upset over Sweden in the quarter-finals and Slovakia in 2010 in Vancouver after a significantly lesser upset over Sweden in the quarter-finals. The two teams have largely the same rosters as the ones who faced off on the opening day of the 2021 Ice Hockey World Championship at the Olympic Sports Centre in Riga, Latvia. In that game, Kristian Pospisil and Peter Cehlarik each scored twice in a 5-2 Slovakia victory. With three points in the game, it was the start of a big tournament for Cehlarik, who finished with 11 points and was named the tournament’s Best Forward. Konrad stopped 32 of 34 shots in the Slovak goal, while Taylor entered the game in relief for Belarus with his team down 3-0 and stopped 25 of 26. “We were two teams,” Ramsay said after that game in a familiar refrain. “One that was aggressive at the start. We chased and we attacked and our power play was really effective. Then when we started to get fancy, we made some funny plays and gave up a lot of chances but fortunately our goaltender was really good.” Sharangovich, the newly appointed Belarus captain fresh off his rookie campaign with the New Jersey Devils, scored his team’s second goal on a breakaway but he could have had a couple more. In the second period, an apparent goal he scored was waved off due to goalie interference and in the last minute, with his team down a pair, he was given a penalty shot but was denied by Konrad. On being captain of a team that’s mostly older than him, Sharangovich recently said: “I feel like I’m more of a captain on the ice, but more experienced guys like (alternate captains) Stas and (Nick) Bailen are responsible for the atmosphere in the locker room. They have the words that can motivate the team. In the locker room, I’m pretty quiet.” The two teams went in very different directions that tournament, with Slovakia qualifying for the quarter-finals for the first time since 2013 while Belarus finished last in Group A with four points. That was just three months ago. Now, Slovakia looks to continue trending upward while Belarus aims to get back on track. The game at hand While Slovakia is the definite favourite to qualify, due to both the skill level of the teams and the fact that they only need to get the game to overtime, both teams are well aware that this could go either way. “This comeback means a lot to the team, but we still have a lot of work to do,” said Woodcroft, looking ahead to Slovakia. “We will study them honestly. They will definitely be a good and difficult opponent. We’ll be ready. I’m not gonna say any more about that.” “The main thing is to go out and play as a team, to strike with one fist, to play the active, aggressive hockey that Craig [Woodcroft] preaches,” said Sharangovich. “When we stick to our system, we will get the kind of chances that we saw in the second period today.” “Against Belarus, we have to stick to our system, play well with the puck, and as soon as we get the puck, we go right to the attack,” said Ramsay. “We have to focus on our game. When we do that, we’re able to make it difficult for any opponent.” “It will be difficult against Belarus,” said Ceresnak. “We will definitely sit down and study their game. It will be a fight for everything, so we have to be 100 per cent ready for it. We found out that we can score goals, so I hope that it’ll also happen against Belarus.” The last word goes to Belarusian forward Alexei Protas who confidently stated: “I don’t think we will lose. Everyone understands how important the next game is. We’re ready to play our best hockey.” IIHF.COM

Six teams, three Olympic spots A record number of 45 countries entered their teams with the hope to compete at the 2022 Olympic men’s ice hockey tournament in Beijing with the top-8 countries plus host China qualified directly. That means three spots remained open for 36 countries going through the Olympic Qualification. Only 12 of them were left this week when the Final Olympic Qualification started. On the last day it’s just six teams remaining in contention for the three spots. GROUP D In Bratislava host Slovakia is the only undefeated team and will only need one point from the last game against Belarus to finish first, thus a regulation-time tie will already be enough to qualify for the Olympics. If Belarus beats Slovakia in regulation time but Poland doesn’t against Austria, Belarus will advance to Beijing 2022. If both Belarus (vs. Slovakia) and Poland (vs. Austria) win in regulation time, a three-way tie of these teams with Slovakia will be created. Since the teams will also be tied in head-to-head points, the goal difference will be the next tie-breaker. Slovakia has a +4 goal difference ahead of the game while Belarus is at -1, which means Belarus would in this case have to win with a margin of three goals or more while Poland (-3) is out of contention for first place. Slovakia will play Belarus on Sunday at 17:30 local team. Click here for the stream. The situation in the other groups looks easier with two undefeated teams facing in each other both in Riga and in Oslo. GROUP E In Riga host Latvia leads the standings with two wins and an impressive 15-0 goal record while France has also been undefeated with 7-3 goals. It will be a winner-takes-it-all clash between the two countries. Even though Latvia may enter the game as a favourite on paper, the Latvians will be careful with this role having lost the last Olympic Qualification tournament at Arena Riga to another opponent from the west, Germany, which eventually ended up as Olympic silver medallists in PyeongChang 2018. Latvia will play France on Sunday at at 17:00 local time (16:00 CET). Click here for the stream GROUP F The situation is similar in Oslo where host Norway and Denmark have been undefeated with the Danes leading the group thanks to their better goal difference. Norway aims to use home-ice advantage and play at the Olympics for the fourth consecutive time. The Danes on the other hand hope to make it to the Olympics for the first time ever. Six NHL players on the roster will help the Danes to overcome the curse but the red-and-white team has failed to qualify in similar situation in past Olympic Qualification tournaments and will be happy to end the curse. Norway plays Denmark in Oslo on Sunday at 16:00. Click here for the stream.

ROAD TO BEIJING 2022 FINAL QUALIFYING ROUND LAST DAY SCHEDULE Group D Central European Summer Time (GMT +2) Austria vs Poland Period-by-Period: August 29th 2021, h. 13:30, Ondrej Nepela Arena, Bratislava Slovakia vs Belarus Period-by-Period: August 29th 2021, h. 17:30, Ondrej Nepela Arena, Bratislava ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Group E Eastern European Sumer Time (GMT +3) Hungary vs Italy Period-by-Period: August 29th 2021, h. 13:00, Arena Riga, Riga Latvia vs France Period-by-Period: August 29th 2021, h. 17:00, Arena Riga, Riga ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Group F Central European Summer Time (GMT +2) Slovenia vs South Korea Period-by-Period: August 29th 2021, h. 12:00, Jordal Amfi, Oslo Norway vs Denmark Period-by-Period: August 29th 2021, h. 16:00, Jordal Amfi, Oslo

Sunday August 29th, 2021 - Knockout Round Day 2 Schedule 5th-8th Place Semifinals Mountain Daylight Time (GMT -6) ROC vs Germany Period-by-Period: August 29th 2021, h. 13:00, WinSports Arena, Calgary (21:00 CEST) I Czech Republic vs Japan Period-by-Period: August 29th 2021, h. 17:00, WinSports Arena, Calgary (01:00 CEST- 30.08.2021)

Power Ranking Heading into the semi-finals, the host Canadians maintain their grip on first place in the fifth edition of our Power Rankings, thanks to their dominant 7-0 win over Germany. The Americans bounce back big-time to grab second place, and Finland moves into third place. 1 CAN MPP + PPG = Good Time Being A Woman 2 USA Fun fact: Hilary won in 2016 3 FIN Offer-sheet Keisala, somebody! 4 SUI Best screams, best anthem, best Sochi vibes 5 CZE We hit a wall – but we’ll make it to the Great Wall 6 ROC As Tolstoy said, “2-0 is the worst lead in hockey” 7 JPN Akane, goddess of scoring off the rush 8 GER Oh, shoot! 9 HUN Halley’s comet: 2061. Haley’s team: 2022 10 DEN Can we play Korea? (Unified or not – we’re easy!) Click here to check out the previous editions of the Power Rankings. The Power Rankings are for the enjoyment of IIHF.com readers, and reflect the progress of teams during the IIHF Ice Hockey Women's World Championship. They are distinct from the official standings and IIHF Women's World Ranking.