A shock defeat for the female lions! Jenni Hiirikoski made a rare mistake – she commented sharply on the impact of the commotion on the team

The Finnish women’s national ice hockey team has bowed out in the quarterfinals against the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic won a dramatic overtime with three against three and advanced to the medal games with a 2–1 victory.

Finnish captain Jenni Hiirikoski had a rare loss of the puck in their own defense zone. Aneta Tejralova took advantage of the situation and certainly shot the puck into the net.

After the match, Hiirikoski said in an interview with that the situation in the extra round haunts his mind “quite a lot”.

– Right now I feel really sad. So it is that sport is full of great emotions. This time we were on the losing side, commented Hiirikoski.

The result is historic for Finland, as it has never before been left out of the medal games at the World Championships. Naisleijonat has achieved 13 bronze and one silver in the history of the World Championships. Finland has placed fourth six times.

The last time at the Olympics, Finland was left out of the medal games in 2014 in Sochi, when it was fifth.

Juuso Toivola was the head coach of the Women’s Lions for the first time at the World Cup level. Toivola’s debut tournament ended in severe disappointment.

After the quarter-final, Toivola commented on his own position as head coach.

– It’s probably not a surprise. that it has crossed my mind. But we go one game at a time and one extension at a time. We’ll see. I’m all for you with that. Of course it hurts and it’s not nice, but you have to move on. The journey continues, Toivola stated.

The Czech Republic started the match stronger, but Finland got into the game as the set progressed. However, the Czech Republic’s active play often yielded results, and Finland did not get out of its own area very often without the puck.

– The Czech Republic came into the game really well and it took us a while to catch the plot, Hiirikoski said.

The Czech Republic took the lead in the match in the second period when the top defender Daniela Pejsova scored his fourth goal of the tournament in 37.00.

In the final set, Finland played its best game and leveled the game led by a well-played second chain. Nora Tulus hit an important spot with his opening goal of the tournament with a precise shot into the bottom corner.

– We created chances all the time throughout the match. “Especially in the third set, we looked pretty hard for the lead hit,” Hiirikoski stated.

However, the overtime ended with Czech celebrations. The Czech Republic reached the top four for the first time in its World Cup history. A year ago, the Czech Republic was seventh when it lost to Finland 0–1 in the quarterfinals.

Finland’s World Cup tournament was full of turbulence. In the initial series, the game performances were overshadowed by the headlines, when the star player Susanna Tapani missed the USA match because of a friend’s wedding.

Tapani’s decision and the way the Women’s Lions communicated it sparked a lot of discussion. The reason for Tapani’s absence was not made public at first.

After this, the goalkeeper became the center of the commotion Meeri Räisänen, whose tweet made headlines. Räisänen published a tweet shortly after the match against the United States, in which he congratulated his 60-year-old father.

So Räisänen was in Denmark when his father celebrated his birthday. The tweet raised the question of whether Räisänen was teasing Tapan or Tapan’s special freedom to travel to his friend’s wedding in the middle of the Games.

Head coach Juuso Toivola commented on the commotion after the loss.

What do you think about your own decisions regarding Susanna Tapani and then this Räisäs kohu? Has it affected the team?

– To the latter: I don’t know where it came from and what it is. To the first one, I will say that we had reasons and thought about it. One can always speculate whether it could be done differently and what the solution would be. Hindsight is of course easy.

– This job includes solutions, right or wrong, but they belong and must be done. We made such a solution. How they relate to each other is another matter, Toivola said with a shrug.

Captain Hiirikoski was asked how the commotion affected the team’s performances. The answer was succinct.

– There’s no point in coming up with any explanations. When I look in the mirror, there is a reason why we are here.