In ice hockey, the quarter-finals largely decide whether or not to perform at a world championship.
Those who survive this predetermined breaking point of the tournament play in the medal round for precious metal and, like the German team after the unexpected penalty victory over the favored Switzerland, can regardless of the final color of the medal - and depending on the previously defined claim even in fourth place - assume a rather successful tournament.
Achim Dreis
Sports editor.
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The team that fails in the quarter-finals, on the other hand, does not use the best performance in the preliminary round. In the best case scenario, it comes home as an unfortunate loser - like Switzerland - or even a failure - like Russia. In a quarter-final, which in its name could have been a final, the Russians lost 2-1 to their all-time opponent Canada after the impressions of the preliminary round and were eliminated.
It was the meeting of two eternal rivals, albeit in a slimmed-down form: Here the 27-time world champion, if you include the times of the former Soviet Union, there the 26-time champion. But the role of favorites was clearly distributed: "Team Canada", without any NHL stars, had muddled through the preliminary round more badly than right and after only three wins in seven games had only stayed in the tournament thanks to a direct comparison with newly promoted Kazakhstan - and because Germany did not even concede the equalizer against hosts Latvia in the very last group game.
Sometimes unexpected constellations occurred at this tournament of surprises, and some complicated calculations were necessary to ensure participation in the knockout round. Many favorites stumbled and an eleven-time world champion stumbled badly: the Swedes even got stuck in the preliminary round. Only the Russians, in terms of play not comparable to the teams from the old Soviet times, but still current Olympic champions, came halfway unscathed through Group A, with only one defeat against Slovakia, but six wins.
At the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, the
Russians, who competed
as
Olympic Athlets from Russia
(OAR), stopped the Germans' triumphant advance in the extension of the final. This time the team, which was still not allowed to compete under its own flag, anthem and name as a punishment because of the state-orchestrated doping program, played under the abbreviation ROC for
Russian Olympic Comitee
.
But in parlance it was still Russia, the record world champion, with the claim to add a 28th title to its previous 27. But the prestige duel against the apparently wilted team of maple leaves was surprisingly lost 1: 2 after extra time. Yevgeny Timkin (35th minute) had put the Russians in the lead. Adam Henrique (46.) equalized. It stayed in regular time. The "sudden death" of the Russians in overtime was accomplished by Andrew Mangiapane (63) from the Calgary Flames with his winning goal.
It was nothing with the hope of finally expanding the collection of titles again after the final victory in Minsk in 2014 against Finland. For the last time in a heavyweights final with Canada, the Russians had stood in 2015, at that time they had gone down 6-1 in the final of the Canadians in the Prague final.
This time in the quarterfinals, according to the preliminary results, the opposite outcome would have been expected, but in the crunchtime of the knockout game, the North Americans showed more bite.
Now, in the semi-finals on Saturday (1:15 p.m. at Sport1), they will meet the USA team, which stayed in the medal race with a 6-1 win against Slovakia.
In the second semi-final round game on Saturday (5.15 p.m. at Sport1), Germans and Finns face each other.
The defending champion had just won 1-0 against the Czech Republic thanks to a goal from Jere Innala (33rd).
This means that all four teams of the preliminary round group B are still in competition, while the teams from group A have to leave Riga after this matchday.
And so all 28 preliminary round matches of the group on the cut-off date of the quarter-finals turned out to be wasted.