Russia Beats Canada, Wins Gold at IIHF
May 11, 2009 by Jeanne Dupuis
Filed under News, Scores
The the second year in a row, Russia triumphed over Team Canada and won the gold at the IIHF World Hockey Championship yesterday but it was far from a runaway game. The score was tight (2-1) and reflected how hard each team battled to win that top prize.
image: Newscom
As if being second-best in the championship wasn’t bad enough, the gold medal was Russia/USSR’s 25th of all time, which dropped Canada to second place with 24 titles.
Only Jason Spezza got a goal for Canada (in the first) while Oleg Saprykin (deflected in on a power play in the first) and Alexander Radulov (late in the second period) tallied for Russia. Scoring was sparse in the game (non-existent in the third period) which was mostly due to the great goaltending of Ilya Bryzgalov and Dwayne Roloson. The Canadians outshot the Russians 16-5 in the second and nearly tied the game when Derek Roy struck the Russian goalpost hard with his wrister. It was so close!
This was the first time since the 1989-1990 championships that Russia won back-to-back gold medals. Meanwhile Sweden beat Team U.S.A. for the bronze medal (the Americans have failed to win a medal since 2004).
