World Juniors: Finns Win Gold in a Thriller
Today's the Epiphany holiday in most of Europe.
In Finland, they'll also be celebrating Ecstasy, or whatever they want to call the aftermath of the local lads earning the gold medal at this year's IIHF World Junior Championship.
And deservedly so.
This title match featured extreme swings of emotion at the end and always an impressive abundance of skill:
Take a closer look at the winning goal:
- Kasperi Kapanen broke blueliner Sergei Boikov's blades with that move on the wing, and
- Ivan Provorov appeared to trap goalie Alexander Georgiev's left leg, leaving him helpless to stop Kapanen's winning wraparound.
And, of course, the Finnish play-by dude was justifiably going spare.
It's estimated that at least half the citizens in this nation of five million were watching and cheering with him.
In the bronze medal match, it seems the USA was into it much more than Sweden was:
Finland will defend their title in Montréal and Toronto next year, where the IIHF's rankings have the pools looking like this:
