Big

They beat Finland 4:0 and will now play Canada in the finals. Canada beat Sweden in the semifinals 5:4.


QUEBEC CITY (Reuters) - Canada beat Olympic champions Sweden 5-4 on Friday to set up a mouth-watering gold medal showdown with long-time rivals Russia at the ice hockey world championship.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/sport...=1&oref=slogin

arm-spin

Should be a damn good game. Easily the two most talented team in this year's WC!

RYou

Big, you write as if there was a huge upset.

LkwdSteve

"Mouth-watering"?

This belongs in the political section of the forum.

jpv

That should be a great game!
I think Russia has a legit shot because of goaltending; Nabokov is better than Ward (most of the time). Also, Russia's top two lines are crazy good. However, if I had to put money down, I'd say Canada will win 4-3 due to their talent in all four lines.

By the way, I read that this is the first time these two countries have met in the World Championship final. That seems almost unbelievable since they're the two best hockey countries in the world, year in and year out.

arm-spin

Ya, it's been 50 years or something. Crazy, I know. Canada-Russia is often the final of other international events. Canada used to get knocked off at the WC's pretty early, but lately a lot of NHL stars are starting to play on the Canadian team. I also think it wll come down to goaltending. Ward is inconsistent. Both teams have great offensive talent.

Big

Soviet Union owns 22 World titles. Pride!

arm-spin

True... though for most of that time, Canada's top hockey players could not participate while the USSR's could. In "best on best" competition the two countries go back and forth pretty evenly.

BTW I am watching the finals right now, it is Canada 3 Russia 2 in the 2nd period.

Big

Russia's goaltending is not so good.

arm-spin

Well congrats, Big, Russia wins 5-4 OT. They dominated the last 2 periods, just too damn fast for team Canada. Kovalchuk has such a wicked wrest shot, tied it up and won it in OT.