The reigning champions had a hard time against Czech Republic, which was supported by a great number of fans in the CEZ arena. The match was very tight right from the start and when the Czechs took the lead in the first period, the crowd cheered for the home team even harder.
The first goal was made in 13.39 by Martin Ostransky, assisted by Ales Zalesny. Zalesny was the most dangerous player in the first period as he increased the Czech lead to 2-0. Soon after, the Swedes came closer with Daniel Calebsson´s goal and the score was 2-1 for Czech Republic after the first period.
Fredrik Djurling equalised the score in the second period with a pretty goal, but then Lukas Nesmerad took the Czechs to a lead again with a shot, which went between the legs of Peter Sjögren.
Niklas Jihde succeeded in the third period, right in front of the Czech´s goal, and then Calebsson took the Swedes to the lead for the first time. Then Czech player Pavel Brus injured his right leg and stayed aside until the end of the match.
The Czechs still came back when Vojtech Skalik equalised the score with a precise shot in the upper corner, but after a marking mistake by the Czechs, when Fredrik Djurling was without guard, he scored the winning goal for the Swedes.
Henrik Quist did not play today as he suffers from an injury in his left foot. Quist will also be out from tomorrow´s game versus Russia. You can read the interview with the injured Pavel Brus here and the Czech team´s head coach, Zdeněk Skružný, here.
The Swiss struggled yesterday against Estonia and also had trouble for two periods against the Norwegians today.
Norway was leading with 4-2 and 5-3 in the second period with two goals being scored by Ketil Kronberg, but then the Swiss captain Christoph Hofbauer put his team back into the game by scoring a hat trick and evening the score to 5-5.
The Swiss team was far more effective during the last 20 minutes and scored four goals in a row and as the Norwegians took three penalties, the Swiss team could win their second WFC match with 9-6.
The Norwegian goalkeeper, Tomas Näsholm gathered one assist as he threw the ball through the Swiss defence in the beginning of the second period. Christoph Hofbauer was awarded as best player for team Switzerland and Raymond Evensen for team Norway.
Team Japan´s five strong minutes secured the victory over Netherlands
Team Japan had recovered from their tough loss from yesterday and was full of energy today. Especially Japan´s five really strong minutes during the second period, when they scored five goals, secured the 8-3 victory over the Netherlands.
Kenichi Ogawa was awarded as Japan´s best player and Adrian Mom Netherlands best player.
Poland leading the B-division group D
In the B-division match Poland took a clear victory over the Hungarian team with a final score of 14-4. Poland was playing with a good team spirit and the goals were shared between 9 Polish players. Poland is leading the B-division´s group D with two victories.
Finland had no problems in defeating Estonia in their first match with 7-0.
The Estonians could not compete with the Finnish team today, which kept the possession of the ball throughout the match. The match was mostly played on the Estonian half of the field and at times it looked as if Finland would have been playing on power play.
The few Estonian counter attacks were mostly blocked by the defenders, the shots on goal were 32 versus 10. There were 5 032 spectaors following the match in the ČEZ Arena A.
A number of Finnish players gathered two points from the match: Jouni Vehkaoja (2+0), Lassi Vänttinen (1+1), Jani Kukkola (1+1), Rickie Hyvärinen (1+1), Harri Forsten (0+2) and Tero Tiitu (0+2). Mika Kohonen was not in the Finnish line-up today because he has been suffering from slight fever.
The Finnish player, Tero Tiitu, was very happy with the atmosphere and attendance in the match, you can read more here.
Germany leading the group C in the B-division
Germany took their other victory after defeating Austria with 6-1 and is the only team continuing without any loss of points in group C. Andreas Gahlert scored a hat trick for Germany
Latvia controlled the game and kept the ball in their possession, but were ineffective in the scoring. Russia on the other hand, played very good defensively and Alexander Taldonov utilised the scoring opportunities, the score was 2-2 after two periods.
The final period was very intense with a lot of good action from both sides. Dmitry Uglanov took Russia to the lead in 43.49, but five minutes later Martins Rajeckis got an open chance from the best scoring sector and evened the score. 30 seconds later Kristiãns Lisovskis settled the match for Latvia and 4-3 was the final score.
Victory for Singapore
Singapore took their first points against Slovenia in a match which could have gone either way. The score was a tie after both the first and the second period, but eleven minutes into the third, Hafeez Mohd Kassim scored the decisive 6-5 goal for Singapore. Mr. Erik Dahlgren was a very happy coach after the first Singaporean victory over a European team, read more about his thoughts here.
