Czech won bronze medals

As often in bronze medal games the play is very entertaining and with lot of scoring chances. This game was no exception. There were many scoring chances for both sides and also very exciting end when Finland tried to get equalizer. Finland was slightly dominating during early minutes but Czech came after that good into the game. They also scored first goal of the game after eleven minutes on power play when Lukas Krajicek shot from the blueline and Petr Prucha directed a bit lucky the puck in. Finland managed to equalize after seventeen minutes from a nice individual effort from Mika Pyörälä who carried the puck into the goal all the way from his own blueline. But only 25 seconds later Czechs stroke again when Jiri Novotny scored in a goalmouth scramble. After that Finland tried to attack too eagerly and that that cost them another goal when David Krejci scored on a 3 on 2 rush.

Second period was not that open play anymore. Finland was trying hard to get more goals and kept more puck but after all Czechs had better scoring chances. In Finlands game were also already some desperation and agony to be seen. That agony made even bigger some situation where Czechs should have had penalty but referee's hand staid down. Finland made also some changes in their lines but they didn't help much at least not yet.

In the third period it looked pretty long time that Czech won't have problems to secure their medals. Finland tried desperately to get goals but Czechs kept Finns away from good scoring chances.After 8.39 Jakub Nakladal was penalized. On power play Mikko Mäenpää sent Jussi Jokinen into a breakway which ended to a goal. From there started a furious end rush of the Finns. Under pressure Czechs took also couple of penalties more but despite that the whole penalty time puck stayed in Czech zone Finland just couldn't score. Czech defended very tight and Finland had to shoot from not so good positions. Czech lead standed until the end and so they finished on the third place in this years tournament.

It was a very good game from both sides. Finland's problem was same what it has been also in previous losses. They made mistakes in crucial points of the field. There weren't many mistakes but those mistakes mainly led to a goal. And maybe the biggest problem was goal scoring.

"If we think about other top countries in  this tournament I think their goal scoring ability was from another planet compared to us" said Finnish coach Jukka Jalonen. "We can play very good games against anybody but when it comes to scoring there is a big difference and that is where we lost this tournament."

Czech coach Alois Hadamczik was ofcourse proud of his team: "We were extremely disappointed yesterday after the game. Considering that I am very porud how we played today and got the medals."

Tweets by @eurohockey