Lassi Kuisma
Great Britain was like the Finnish national football team, writes Lassi Kuisma from Zurich.
The Lions took a routine victory on Friday. Pasi Liesimaa
The match between the Lions and Great Britain at the World Hockey Championships on Friday went down in the history books.
Namely, to the excellent Jääkiekkokirja, the most recent edition of which lists Finland’s A national matches on page 333.
Opus says that Finland and Great Britain had met five times before Friday. Great Britain seeded Finland in 1951 and 1962.
Great Britain was ahead in wins until 2022, largely because the country’s national team has not been good enough to face the Lions.
Since 2019, the countries have met four times. Finland has won the matches with a goal difference of 23–0.
Metaphorically speaking, Friday’s match did not go down in the history books. Unfortunately, there was nothing interesting in the game.
Great Britain was against Leijon like the Finnish national football team in the European Championship final tournament in 2020. There was no indication that the team would score a goal.
The match was rarely one-sided, even by the standards of the World Hockey Championships. Finland drummed up long attacks and the British blocked the center. Ville Heinola saved Finland from the biggest pain in the second period with his 2–0 goal.
Tasakenti’s game was largely as if Finland was playing with superiority. At times, Finland also really played with superiority.
If you wanted to force yourself to come up with something exciting, you could follow, for example, whether Great Britain breaks its clean sheet against Leijon in recent history.
Didn’t break. So let’s repeat again: From 2019, four games of ice hockey, not a single goal for the other team
What’s the point?