BEIJING, February 18 (Xinhua) – Finland defeated Slovakia 2-0 for their fifth straight victory to reach the final of the men’s ice hockey competition in Beijing 2022 this Friday.
Finland beat Slovakia 5-3 in the 2010 Olympic bronze medal match, which was their only previous Winter Games meeting.
Finland’s forward Sakari Manninen, 30, scored his fourth goal in Beijing at 15:58, and Harri Pesonen threw in the puck without the goalkeeper in the last minute to secure the victory.
“Going to an Olympic final is like a dream. You dream of this kind of moment, but at the same time (I try) to focus on the right things, not think about it too much and prepare for the next match,” Manninen said.
“It (the loss) is a difficult pill to swallow. We had them under a lot of pressure but could not score,” said Marek Hrivik, Slovakia’s captain.
Finland won the three matches including defeating Slovakia 6-2 in the preliminary round and stunned Switzerland 5-1 in the quarterfinals.
The Slovaks only got one win in the preliminary round but beat Germany 4-0 in the qualifying round.
Slovakia equalized with 44 seconds left of regular time and beat the USA 3-2 in a shootout in the quarterfinals, and it is the first time since Turin in 2006 that neither Canada who was knocked out by Sweden nor the USA goes on to the semifinals.