Sweden becomes the World Champion after thrilling final – 09.12.2017

After nine days, the tournament came to its end with the most important match, which would decide about the next World Champion.

In the finals, Finland battled the very strong Sweden. It looked very promising as the two best teams in the world met in the finals again. Even though both teams are undoubtedly good, it was Sweden who was the proclaimed favorite of this game and it was obvious that it is going to be extremely hard for Finland to stop Swedish unstoppable-looking offense.

As expected, it was Sweden who scored the first goal, as Sofia Joelsson scored. But Finland managed to even the game very quickly, with a one-handed goal by Silja Eskelinen. After a while of a leveled game, Sweden got back in the lead when Sara Steen scored.

In the second period, Sweden firstly increased their lead to 3-1 with a goal scored by Amanda Delgado Johansson. Things got even more complicated for Finland when Kristiina Kauppila got a 2-minute penalty and they had to defend Swedish powerplay. However, Sweden did not get many chances and twenty seconds to the end of the penalty. Moa Tschop was given a penalty as well.

Ten minutes to the end of the second period, Johansson scored again and Sweden got three goals ahead. Then, Finland got a big chance to lessen the game, but Veera Kauppi missed a penalty shot and the score remained unchanged. However, Nina Rantala scored a very quick goal in a powerplay and after the second period, the score was 4-2.

In the third period, Finland did the unexpected. First, Oona Kauppi scored in a powerplay and cut down the score to 4-3. Shortly after that, Veera Kauppi brought the arena to the edge when she scored the equalizer and turned the final into overwhelming drama.

First, it was Sweden who got ahead again with a goal by Moa Tschop. But Finland continued to fight back really hard and it paid off, one minute before the end of the match, Veera Kauppi scored and leveled the game again and moved it to overtime.

Since nobody was able to score in overtime, shootouts were there to decide about the winner. Amanda Delgado Johansson scored the winning shot and made Sweden the World Champion.

Best players:
Sweden: #33 Amanda Delgado Johansson
Finland: #63 Veera Kauppi