Finland is on a winning streak towards the climax of the World Cup tournament.
The starting group race and a six-game winning streak, even without losing a single point, is not a treat every spring for Leijon.
– There hasn’t been this kind of shelling for a while, he sums up Niko HovinenIltalehti’s World Cup hockey expert.
– A pretty clear win has come from every single match.
Last spring, Leijonat only upset France, the current B-series team, in overtime. Two years ago, there were four defeats in the opening series: to the Czech Republic, Canada, Switzerland and, catastrophically, even to Austria.
In the World Cup home games in the spring of 2022, which ended in gold, Leijonat lost the fourth match of the first group to Sweden with heavy losses. In the same year’s Olympics without NHL players, the only small blemish on the gold march was the loss of one spot in the first group to Sweden.
In the spring of 2016, Leijonat won their first group with a clean game and a goal difference of 29–6. At that time, the flight only stopped in the finals to Canada – which Leijonat had knocked out in the final match of the preliminary series with a dull 4-0 hit.
Curt Lindström the lion team he coached famously won the world championship in the spring of 1995, but the going was great already the previous year. In the Olympics, Leijonat lost only one set, the one that cost the place in the finals.
In the World Cup, too, Leijonat lost only one set, to the Czech Republic in the draw match of the first group, but the world championship slipped to Canada in the famous grueling race.
The Lions of the World Cup started with a loss to the Czech Republic. The Calgary Olympic tournament in the winter of 1988, which brought the first Finnish ice hockey medal, started with a loss to Switzerland, which was still Lilliputian at the time.
“Rather like that”
Niko Hovinen is an experienced national team goalkeeper. Rosa Bröijer
In summary: a winning streak in the first group does not guarantee anything – and the fighting in the first group does not eat away at championship chances.
– In principle, the placement of the group doesn’t matter that much, but an easier starting point is if the game goes and we go from win to win, Hovinen sees.
– In a completely different way, self-confidence is in order when playing in special situations works and goalkeeper play works and five-man play works. Then you don’t have to worry or worry about anything anymore.
Could it be a problem that the lion team hasn’t really had to face any kind of headwind in Zurich?
– Of course, it increases self-confidence if you overcome difficulties and dig yourself through difficulties to victory, but I prefer to play so that the game flows and there are no difficulties in every match, Hovinen acknowledges.
– It’s probably mentally easier to go to the next games when things are so well put together.
“You just have to put up with it”
Finland has not yet lost a point in the World Cup tournament. Pasi Liesimaa
Even though the loss column is clean, Leijonat has faced difficulties within the matches, Hovinen reminds.
– Something happens in every match, but maybe at the moment the difficulties are quite small.
Hovinen takes, for example, the Latvia match. Skipper Alexander Barkov the loss of the puck led to a setback at the ten second mark.
– When you have a top team like that, it handles and overcomes those difficulties quite quickly, he emphasizes.
– A bad bounce can happen or we get a lot of ice, as for example in the opening match, as I remember [Saksaa vastaan]. It is also tolerance and overcoming difficulties.
On Tuesday, the Lions will face Switzerland, another winning team, in the final match of the first group, and on Thursday, in the quarter-finals, one of the quartet Czech Republic-Slovakia-Norway-Sweden.
– There will certainly still be difficult moments, Hovinen predicts.
– Then you just have to put up with them. The top teams tolerate them and overcome them.
The lion pack led by Barkov has plenty of experience in tough places.
– The team is full of Europe’s top guys who have been in their club teams in all kinds of situations. It’s unlikely that anything like that will come from there now, where they have never been before.
Tightness
Niko Hovinen, Pasi Nurminen and Leo Komarov presented the World Cup trophy to the people of Lahti in the spring of 2011. MATTI MATIKAINEN
Hovinen was part of the World Championship gold team in the spring of 2011. The first part of the championship journey was anything but a struggle, at least in terms of results.
– The confidence in what I was doing was strong, Hovinen recalls.
– Certainly there were difficulties and other things, but somehow from that side as well [kolmosvahtina] sense that this thing is going well.
Finland only beat Denmark and Slovakia in regular time in the opening and further group matches, but was almost overwhelming in the playoff stage.
– In a short tournament, it’s pretty much a day-at-a-time mentality. If there’s a bad game, it’s already gone – and then we move on to the next one.
Hovinen remembers the compactness as the most significant thing about the MM11 gold team.
– Those groups that are tight usually succeed the best, he estimates.
– I have such a feeling about this Finnish team that it is quite nice to be there at the moment.
