Sweden, Czech Republic to meet in worlds title game
RIGA, Latvia -- Olympic champion Sweden has a shot for an unprecedented hockey double play.
Mikael Samuelsson and Jonas Nordquist scored early in the second period and Sweden held off Canada 5-4 on Saturday to reach the title game of the world hockey championship against defending titlist Czech Republic.
No country has captured Olympic and world championship hockey titles in the same year. The twin victories even escaped even the mighty Soviet teams of the 1970s.
The Czech Republic reached the championship game with a 3-1 victory over Finland earlier Saturday.
Samuelsson and Nordquist scored 1:08 apart to push Sweden's lead to 5-2 before Canada rallied.
"We took care of business in the first and got the lead, and it's always easy to play with the lead, I think," Samuelsson said. "It was a fun game to play. It was a tight game at the end."
Sidney Crosby scored for Canada to make it 5-3 with 35 seconds left in the middle period and then was cross-checked hard into the boards behind the net by Mika Hannula. Hannula, who had a hat trick in the quarterfinal win over the United States, was ejected and given an automatic suspension for Sunday's final.
Canada capitalized when Crosby set up linemate Patrice Bergeron 3:38 into the third period to make it 5-4, but the Canadians couldn't tie it despite mounting heavy pressure.
"You never like to lose but we took bad penalties and had some unlucky breaks," said Crosby, who has tournament highs of eight goals and 15 points. "I'm a little banged up but luckily I'm not seriously hurt. It's tough. A couple of bounces went their way. Everything went so wrong, especially early on."
Kyle Calder and Mike Comrie also scored for Canada.
Niklas Kronwall and Jorgen Jonsson, two of only a handful of Olympic gold medalists on this Swedish squad, and Tony Martensson also scored. New York Rangers forward Michael Nylander had three assists.
David Vyborny of the Columbus Blue Jackets scored the go-ahead goal late in the third period for the Czechs, who reached the final for the fifth time since 1999.
With 3:43 left, Vyborny tipped Tomas Kaberle's shot from the point past goalie Fredrik Norrena on a power play.
"I just tried to stay in front of the net, and Tomas just tried to shoot the high glove and I just touched it and it went in," Vyborny said.
It was the third goal and 10th point in the tournament for Vyborny.
Jaroslav Hlinka added an empty-netter with 46 seconds left after Finland pulled Norrena for an extra attacker 10 seconds earlier.
Finland, with 10 Olympic silver medalists on its roster, took the lead eight minutes into the game when Riku Hahl's long shot from the neutral zone went past Czech Republic goalie Milan Hnilicka's stick side.
Tomas Plecanek tied it after a brilliant move at 8:26 of the second period with the Czechs playing shorthanded. After taking a mid-ice pass, Plecanek skated in, deked Finland defenseman Petteri Nummelin and fired a backhander from a tough angle past Norrena's glove side.
"I think we played a really good game," Nummelin said. "We were ready to play from the start. I don't know if the Czechs weren't ready, but the first period was ours and they got a little bit better in the second. We got a couple of chances and didn't score. They got a couple of chances and did."
Finland outshot the Czechs 34-21.
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press
