Sweden vs Russia - there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that
this would not turn out to be a great game. Sweden looked virtually untouchable
in the round-robin and Russia was a great team – like always – that looked
nearly as difficult to beat. It was bound to be a hell of a game. And it was.
Matched up against each other, the size of each team’s
roster was evident but that certainly made for an interesting game. Both teams
were moving astonishingly fast in the first period, although Sweden did not
appear to be playing the same game that they played in the rest of the
tournament. Despite the final score of 2-1 in Sweden’s favor, it was clear that
Sweden did not actually deserve to win that game nearly as much as Russia did.
Russia was playing with all they could; Sweden was not. Sweden just got lucky,
when it really boils down to it. Sweden’s goalie – Dansk – absolutely saved
their asses for most of the game, but the one goal he did let in was very weak.
It was highly amusing. That’s basically the game in a nutshell, if you didn’t
see it, this isn’t what I want to talk about; there are much more interesting
things to note in this game. 
Sweden’s coach was setting quite the example for his team.
He was arguing with the officials on every call that was made. The best thing
that he would do though is he would motion that it was a dive on every call
that Russia drew. Yeah, sure. If the coach is being a jerk about it all, what
makes anyone think that the players would do anything but? It’s worth noting
that the calls that he was flipping out about, had very little that they could
actually argue against. Players follow the coach’s lead, so of course when the
coach isn’t happy with officiating, the players aren’t going to and things are
going to go wrong. And boy, did they ever.
At the end of the game, Jesper Petterson was still sitting
in the penalty box for the Swedes as his penalty was called with under a minute
left – and was undeniable. Russia had put some serious pressure on during the
powerplay in the dying seconds and apparently Sweden felt threatened or
something, The buzzer went and all hell broke loose. A scrum ensued and it was
just like any other scrum except for one thing. Petterson made a bee-line out
of the sin bin and lost it at Andrei Mironov. Petterson started throwing
punches at Mironov with his gloves on, so naturally Mironov retaliated and
threw some punches back. So despite the decision that IIHF will have to make,
it’s pretty obvious that that is a fight even though the gloves were on. The
officials in the game assessed both players with a 2-minute roughing minor,
however IIHF is reviewing the incident to decide if any disciplinary action is
necessary. Under international rules, any fight instantly leads to a
suspension, so these two guys should in theory be suspended for the rest of the
tournament. In theory.
When all of this was developing Sweden’s coach lost his
mind. He threw a water bottle and then was motioning like he was going to flip
the bench. His assistant coach calmed him down greatly.
Oh wait, it gets better though. During handshakes a few of
the Swedish players refused to shake hands with Mironov. Makes total sense,
right? I mean the guy gets jumped by your own teammate and defends himself with
punches being thrown back, and you are mad at him. Right, nothing fickle about
that.
And it still gets better. They changed the formatting of the
quarter and semi finals a little bit this year and decided that they would
announce the players of the tournament for each team that was eliminated in the
quarters and for each team in the semis. So the Russian player of the game is
announced, he gets booed. The players of the tournament get announced for
Russia and they all get booed. Classy Sweden.
Don’t take this the wrong way, Sweden is a great team and
they have some great fans. The actions of the team, the coach and the players
in this game did not show how wonderful they could be, but rather became the
epitome of what is hated most in hockey. Sweden is a great team and a great
hockey community, but they essentially villanized themselves in this game.
Regardless, best of luck to Sweden in the gold medal game.
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