Canada’s ice hockey selection kept the chance of successfully defending its title at the Ice Hockey World Championship. Despite being 3-0 down, the 27-time champion beat Sweden 4-3 (0-2, 0-1, 3-0) after extra time in Tampere, Finland, and advanced to the semi-finals. The Canadians only made up for the deficit in the final third, scoring two goals in the 59th minute. Drake Batherson scored the winning goal after 43 seconds of overtime. On Saturday, Canada will play in the semifinals for a place in the final against the Czech Republic, which beat Germany. With another gold medal, the North Americans could become the sole record world champion ahead of Russia, which was excluded.
In the second semi-final, hosts Finland will meet the USA. The Finnish Olympic champions prevailed 4:2 after a long fight against the Olympic bronze medalists Slovakia. At the same time, the Americans defeated Switzerland surprisingly clearly with 3:0 goals. The Confederates had previously won all preliminary round games in the German group as the only team to do so.
