Canada’s 3-1 win over the Czech Republic came about after a strange series of events.
Today, at the men’s world championships in ice hockey, at the end of the match between the Czech Republic and Canada, a strange situation was seen, which ended with Canada Lawson Crouse was able to hit an empty net, the final figures 3–1.
Canada secured second place in the group and will face Finland in Thursday night’s quarter-final.
Before Crouse’s shot, the Czech Republic played the puck into Canada’s end. The linesman raised his hand to signal offside. Thus, Czech players in the offensive zone could not touch the puck.
The Canadians didn’t touch the puck either, but played for time. So Jiri Cernoch poked the puck in the end to cause an intentional offside and a stoppage, but the referees still let the game continue.
Then a towel flew onto the ice from the stands. Still, play continued, and eventually Canada’s goal was allowed after a lengthy meeting with the referees.
Czech head coach Kari Jalonen it went really well in the exchange.
The Czech press has naturally made a big fuss about the case. Forward Jiri Cernoch couldn’t understand how the referees didn’t notice that he was touching the puck.
– The judge was only two meters away from me. He claimed not to notice, Cernoch updated (you switch to another service) for the Czech site Sport.cz.
Czech captain Roman Cervenka and many other Czech players surrounded the jury after the situation. Cervenka reminded that the judges could no longer reverse the situation. The situation in question was such that you couldn’t watch it on videos, and the coaching couldn’t challenge it.
Kari Jalonen told Sport.cz that the referee supervisor of the match was sorry for what happened to him.
– Everyone makes mistakes. The supervisor has sent a message to us coaches that the judges made a mistake. That it should have been offside. They should have blown the whistle. But everyone makes mistakes. At this level… That shouldn’t happen, Jalonen commented on the incident.
The Czechs were also annoyed by the situation in the third set, where Michael Spacek received a bleeding wound on his face by Brad Hunt from the racket. However, according to the rules, the situation went correctly, because it was a shot/pass escort.
During the World Cup, refereeing has been the talk of the town a lot.
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Cernoch lamented the inconsistency.
– I don’t really know what the rules are. If the Canadian guys are used to playing pig as much as they can… Sometimes the referee blows his whistle, sometimes he doesn’t. I understand that each referee whistles for a different league, it’s difficult for them too.