The USA beat Austria 4-1 deservedly for a challenger while defending champion and Olympic champion Finland beat the French 5-3 in a big battle in the Tampere World Hockey League group with Hungarian interests on Wednesday. Match day of the fourth round.
In the battle for survival, it is important for national team captain Kevin Constantine’s team that Austria not score points until the match against each other on Monday, after which the Austro-Hungarian match will be the “final”. After a dull first half, events picked up, Rocco Grimaldi scored first from near the goal, then the Austrians converted a well-played man advantage into a goal: Peter Schneider imitated a shot, but passed to the empty Thomas Ravel, who had to score from close range into an empty goal. However, 57 seconds later, Carter Mazur was left alone and made no mistake. At the beginning of the last third, Len Hutson made his way through the Austrian defense, the goalkeeper made a bad stick, and the ball fell into the goal between his legs. On the other hand, Dominik Zwerger missed a penalty and, in the end, the away team scored another empty-net goal, always 100%.
Against the Finns, underdogs France – who lost to the Hungarians after extra time on Tuesday – quickly took the lead due to a goalkeeping error, but the answer came three and a half minutes later. At the start of the second half, the home team had the advantage, but the guests did not break and equalized in the 29th minute. The Finns accelerated and went 4-2, but the French reduced the deficit to a minimum in the 50th minute, so the hair turned into an exciting hair. The French dropped their guard, but scored a goal.
Fourth round results:
Group (Tampere):
Finland-France 5-3 (1-1, 2-1, 2-1)
USA-Austria 4-1 (0-0, 2-1, 2-0)
the job:
1. The United States, 12 points / 4 games
2 – Denmark 8/3 (13-6)
3 – Sweden 8/3 (8-1)
4. Finland 7/4
5. France 4/3
6. Hungary 2/3
7. Austria 1/4
8. Germany 0/3
The second group (Riga):
Canada-Kazakhstan 5-1 (4-1, 0-0, 1-0)
Latvia-Norway 2-1 (0-0, 2-1, 0-0)
the job:
1. Canada 11/4
2. Switzerland 9/3
3. Czech Republic 7/3
4. Latvia 5/4
5 – Slovakia 4/3 (5-6)
6- Norway 4/4 (5-9)
7. Kazakhstan 2/4
8. Slovenia 0/3
The top four teams from each group will advance to the quarter-finals, the bottom two will be eliminated, and will be in Division I/A next year.
Cover Photo:
Marco Rossi and Henri Thrun in the Austrian-American group match at the World Cup of Hockey (Photo: MTI/Tibor Illyés)
