TAMMERFORS. This was the night the 2023 Ice Hockey World Cup suddenly died.
Just lay down and fall.
Host nation Finland came out straight against Canada and it was a fiasco for Sweden and Sam Hallam.
How many Swedish national hockey sticks can stand?
And how empty do you feel after a hockey game?
Honestly, I only felt the same emptiness once.
It was an early afternoon in Salt Lake City in 2002 when I looked at the final numbers of 3-4 on the Jumbotron in position E after an Olympic quarter-final against Belarus.
Now I am doing the 35th and final toilet on site and have to finish with another fiasco. But I can take it too.
This defeat, of course, is nowhere near the historic slam in Salt Lake City, which is also considered one of the biggest defeats of all time.
Only USA ice prodigy at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics overcame the shock of Belarus.
Now I was so confident of Sweden’s victory that I stayed in Tampere waiting for the Swedish semi-final and watched the game parallel to last year’s FIFA World Cup final replay between Finland and Canada.
After all, this was a match Sweden had to win.
They were superior in all respects, except when it came to heart and pride in their country.
In that region, there are pretty much no hockey nations that have outdone Latvia, where hockey is the main national sport and where players have an entire country behind them.
How far did the economy play in it?
Trailing 3-1 over the goal line with 6.14 to go, I was almost gasping as TV cameras zoomed into the stands.
She was pure, teary-eyed joy and I couldn’t help but watch in envy.
Especially on a day like this when the Latvians made history and went to the semi-finals of the World Cup for the first time.
It also warms the hockey heart, which has just suffered another Swedish fiasco.
Because it cannot be called anything else.
Even the famous Sam Hallam couldn’t reverse the negative trend of already being knocked out in the quarter-finals.
Five years in a row have now passed in the same way and now it is almost a good thing that the Swiss WC, which was scheduled for 2020, has been cancelled.
And the next year – in the same Riga – Johann Garbinlöf made history with a WC team that didn’t even make it to the quarterfinals.
This time around, he still looks good with six straight wins for Sam Hallam, who has built a successful and safe base game for a full season and has chosen to bet on players based in Europe.
But when it comes to NHL builders, they’ve been low budget through and through, with players who haven’t had much success in the best league in the world.
Above all, it was cheap to insure.
I don’t know how much the federation’s finances ultimately played a role, but in the case of 100-point player Elias Peterson, they spoke plainly and admitted it was too expensive to secure.
Although he himself wanted to come.
As for William Nylander, we don’t yet know why he didn’t come, although the game-winner from Toronto has been allocated a spot.
Gloria fell into the ice
But just like that, when it’s over, it’s quite clear that the lack of an advantage cost Sweden a place in the quarter-finals. He was very decisive.
Building a team that looked so good in six games has been like a house of cards in the last two matches against the USA and Latvia.
Because it was an acute situation.
There, Sam Hallam’s aura fell noisily onto the ice and it felt like a new castle in the air had exploded.
Now he can take stock of that fiasco and hopefully realize that more help was needed from the NHL than he got this time around.
If Sam Hallam himself is behind those decisions, I hope he examines himself and his self-image.
This is a whole new arena and he has now learned his first lesson.
Finland then?
Yes, all of the great successes of the last few years have been almost too good.
They were smoking in the air this time, especially after the weak group stage.
They could live on two new World Cup golds and an equally new Olympic gold from Beijing for a few more years.
The 4-1 result in Canada was a blow that could be saved.
But for the restroom as a whole, it was of course a slap in the face.
The insomniac semi-final was not played.
But I know what my new favorite is.
Latvia.
I hope they go all the way, but of course they won’t have any chance in the semi-finals against Canada.
Anything else would surprise me.
They have already taken the victory of a lifetime.
