No wins for Great Britain in the group stage

The morning match on Wednesday in B-division was between Austria and Great Britain. Both teams had secured their positions in Group C already before the match.

The spirit of the match was seen right in the beginning. Austria had the ball possession most of the time and Great Britain tried to score mostly from the counter-attacks. In the first period Austrian domination produced three goals and the score after first period was 3-0.

The second period was fast and not that much controlled playing. Jens Stanfield scored three goals for Great Britain, but this did not help as at the same time Austria scored four times. In the third period the tempo of the game went down again and there were only two Austrian goals seen.  This way the final score of the match was 9-3. The best goal scorer for Austria was Nikolaus Arnold who scored a hattrick.

he best players were awarded after match. The best of Great Britain was Kenton West and the best of Austria was Nikolaus Arnold.

This was the last group match for both teams. Austria´s position of the group was 2nd and they will play in the B semi-finals against winner of the D Group, Poland. Great Britain did not manage to win any matches in the group stage so they were placed 5th in the group. Therefore Great Britain will meet Netherlands in the match of 19th place in the tournament.

Read more about the match and the interview of Great Britain coach Ville Peltomäki from organisers web pages.

Sweden winner of group A

The A-division started today with a match between Sweden and Latvia. The Latvian team needed a victory from this match in order to stay in the battle of the semi-final spot.

Sweden´s effectiveness right from the start did not give the Latvian´s a chance to surprise. The power play of the Swedes was also impressive, as all three power plays and one equally shorthanded situation resulted in goals.

Fredrik Djurling scored was very effective and scored six of Sweden´s goals. Ingus Laivins reduced the Swedish lead to 7-3 in 39.18 after a nicely executed penalty shot.

In the third period the Latvians started to look tired and the Swedes could increase the lead with good passing play. The final score was 12-4 to Sweden.

Magnus Svensson was awarded as best player of Sweden. Svensson´s interview is found here.

Read more about the match and the interviews of Swedish head coach Kent Göransson and Latvian head coach Normunds Grunckis from organisers web page.

Sweden will play in the semi-final against the 2nd team in group B and Latvia will play for the 5th place.

Finland secured the B group victory

The first period was quite tight between Norway and Finland and ended 1-2, but in the second period the match slipped away from the Norwegians.

Finland could score one goal after another after good passing formations, which made the Norwegians make marking mistakes in their own zone. Runar Snellingen´s penalty shot, executed in excellent zorro style, did not help the Norwegians and the score was 9-2 after two periods.

The third period was just a formality and the Finns had the oppportunity to experiment different formations. Tero Tiitu (4+0) and Rickie Hyvärinen (2+3) played a good match and also Willy Fauskanger, who is the A-division scoring leader, was effective today with 1+2.

Tiitu and Andreas Sletten were awarded as best players.

Lassi Vänttinen (in the picture) thinks the Czechs will be tough opponents in the semis, but that the Finns are capable of winning the whole tournament. Ream more here.

Finland will play their semi-final versus Czech Republic on Saturday at 16:10 CET. Sweden and Switzerland will play their semi-final at 19:10 CET.

Germany remained unbeaten in the B-division group C

Germany won also their last group match versus Slovenia with clear numbers 13-3 and will play the B-division semi-final against USA on Friday at 16:10. Slovenia is fourth place in the group C and will play for the 17th place on Friday at 13:10.

Read both teams´ coaches thoughts about the game here.

Japan plays for 5th place in the B-division

The Group D match between Japan and Hungary was a battle for the third place in the group as both teams had taken two points from the previous matches.

György Liebe put Hungary to an early 1-0 lead, but Takuma Akagami evened the score and Jan Kondo took the Japanese into a 2-1 lead before the intermission.

In the second period Kennichi Kubo scored two goals in a row and put Japan to a safe three goal lead.

The three goal lead was also the final goal difference as Japan won with 5-2 and will play for the 15th place against the other Asian team, Singapore, on Saturday at 11:10.

Hungary will play versus Slovenia on Friday for the 17th place at 13:10.

Read Coach Yoshino´s and Kennichi Kubo´s interview here and coach Zsolt Ágoston´s interview here.

Italy will need to qualify for WFC 2010

Team Italy´s hopes of staying in the A-division in 2010 lasted for 12 minutes as Italy´s chance for playing for the 7th place was depending on the goal difference. The Czech team that had already secured their place in the semi-finals but despite this, the Czechs did not really give the Italians a chance.

The Czechs had already scored nine goals before Italy scored their first. The final score was 12-2 for the Czechs.

Petr Novotný (1+4), Milan Fridrich (2+1) and Radek Sikora (1+2) were the most effective players of the Czech team. Fridrich was also awarded as best player and Marco D´Agostini, who scored Italy´s second goal, was the best player for Italy.

There were 4 099 spectators following the home team´s last match in Ostrava and after the game the Czech team thanked for the support they have received in the Cez Arena.

The Czechs will play in the earlier semi-final match on Saturday and Italy will play for the 9th place on Saturday at 17:10 against Denmark.

Semifinal 1

Semifinal 2

Russia and Estonia will play for the 7th place and for staying in the A-division for 2010.

7th place

Also the winner of the B-division (Germany, Poland, Austria or USA) will play in the A-division in 2010.

All the placement and play-off matches are found from the IFF´s WFC 2008 webpage