Lions captain Aleksander Barkov. Pasi Liesimaa
In this spring’s ice hockey World Championships, we are now moving on to the playoff phase. The quarter-final opponent of the Lions, i.e. Finland, was confirmed on Tuesday, when the last matches of the preliminary series were played.
The Lions were still fighting for the victory in the first group played in Zurich against the competition host, Switzerland. Meanwhile, in Fribourg, the Czech Republic tried to topple Canada, which would have allowed them to still finish second in Group B.
When Finland lost to Switzerland and the Czech Republic to Canada, it knew that the spring world champion Czech Republic would face Finland in the quarterfinals.
Leijonat was second in its own group, while the Czech Republic was third in Group B.
Leijonat will go into Thursday’s quarter-finals as at least a small advance favorite. The setup is built through the teams’ rosters: The Lions have a total of 13 NHL reinforcements participating in this spring’s World Cup, while the Czech Republic has practically only one regular NHL player: Filip Hronek (Vancouver Canucks).
How will Finland be defeated in Thursday’s quarter-final match? This question was brought to the fore on the Czech sports website iSport.cz.
The site shared a rather special “pouring instruction”.
– Crying out the love of Bouzková.
The site refers to the background of Lions captain Aleksander Barkov. Barkov is in a relationship with Czech tennis player Marie Bouzková.
– Bouzková often smiles like a sunflower. On the contrary, her boyfriend, Finnish ice hockey player Aleksander Barkov, may cry when his beloved knocks him out, on the iSport website.
The potential relationship between Barkov and Bouzková came to the fore already in the summer of 2023, when Barkov arrived at Wimbledon to watch Bouzková’s Grand Slam match.
Bouzková was the one who finally revealed that Barkov, the captain of the NHL club Florida Panthers, will strengthen Leijon in this spring’s World Cup tournament.
The revelation came when Bouzková was asked at a press conference at the WTA tournament in Prague if Barkov would come to cheer her on at the July event.
– Won’t it be arranged this time too? The Panthers won’t play in the playoffs, but Sasha will in the World Cup, Bouzková quipped, following up:
– He has to come. My birthday is that week, Bouzková smiled.
According to Bouzková, Barkov “is at home in Prague” (the capital of the Czech Republic).
– He likes coming here. He has good puck experiences here and he likes the Czech culture, so he is looking forward to that, Bouzková pointed to Barkov’s upcoming visit to the WTA.
Barkov featured heavily in Tuesday’s match against Switzerland, as he kept the Lions’ hopes alive with two hits. Barkov, 30, has scored 2+6=8 in seven World Cup matches this spring.
Thursday’s quarter-final match between the Lions and the Czech Republic starts at 17:20 Finnish time.
