DAY 5: 8.12.2010
Czech Republic beats Estonia in penalty shootout thriller It took an overtime and a penalty shootout to decide who was going to play Finland in Friday's WFC semi-final. It turned out to be Czech Republic who won today's late night quarter-final thriller against Estonia 3-2 (0-1, 0-0, 1-0, 0-0, 1-0). In the end, Estonia fought furiously to keep their lead but their luck finally ran out. At 58.16, Jan Jelinek took a shot from the boards and Tomas Sladky was first at the rebound. Despite protests for high stick by the Estonians the ball was taken to the middle and the game went into overtime.
There was no question about careful play as both teams chased a goal. The last chances opened for Estonia whose Henrik Talme almost won the game just as the final buzzer sounded. Czech Republic turned out to be a lot better in penalty shooting. Henrik Talme was the only Estonian to beat Tomas Kafka whereas Milan Fridrich, Ales Zalesny, Martin Richter and Tomas Chrapek all scored for Czech Republic.
Pick ups from the day 5
Pick ups from the day 5
Finland perform their best this far
Tuomas Korhonen and Werner Heinonen the WFC DJs
GAMES ON 9.12. HARTWALL AREENA 10:00 CAN-ITA (11th place) 13:00 POL-GER (9th place) 16:00 SUI-RUS (Quarterfinal 3) 19:00 SWE-NOR (Quarterfinal 2) ENERGIA AREENA 11:00 SIN-JAP (15th place) 14:00 DEN-SIN (13th place)
standings
Finland became the first team to make the top four in the WFC after a 12-2 quarter-final victory over Latvia tonight. Latvia fought back bravely and scored the first goal of the game but Finland played their best game of the week this far and was not to be stopped. -I don't think there was any problem with our concentration. We have great respect for Latvia who have a tough team and are getting more skilled year by year, Finland's Tero Tiitu said. - Their first goal was a good wake-up call for us. I think Latvia is going to be the next country to really challenge the top four and I really admire the constant progress they are making.
WFC2010 DJs Tuomas Korhonen and Werner Heinonen are responsible for the music and announcer jobs at Hartwall Arena. - The music has been selected beforehand obviously. We try not to play just commercial stuff, but old classics as well. It's important to play songs that people recognize. We tend to play a lot of dance music because the beat is very important. 135 beats per minute is quite alright and we make it even faster as the game gets more excited. - Team Finland has requested some songs also, we're currently working on that list. But as this is a tournament with different teams and countries participating, we can't play just Finnish songs or in any other way favor Finland with the songs played. It's an international tournament even though it's organized in Finland. Team Finland's own choice was "Anna sen soida" by a Finnish rap artist Elastinen. You get to hear it when Finland scores.
Group A Finland Russia Canada Denmark
3 36-5 3 17-23 3 14-27 3 8-20
6 4 2 0
Group B Switzerland Latvia Poland Singapore
3 55-4 3 35-7 3 12-22 3 5-74
6 4 2 0
Group C Sweden Estonia Germany Australia
3 81-3 3 25-28 3 16-30 3 8-69
6 4 2 0
Group D Czech Rep. Norway Italy Japan
3 45-5 3 34-7 3 5-29 3 3-46
5 5 2 0
AUS
CAN
CZE
DAN
EST
FIN
GER
ITA
JAP
LAT
NOR
POL
RUS
SIN
SUI
SWE