Finns hope for Canadian ‘catastrophe’
Coach says his underdog team has ‘nothing to lose’ in women’s semifinal against host nation
KAMLOOPS — The best thing about international women’s hockey is the rivalry between the Canadians and the Americans.
The second-best thing is how blunt coaches from other nations can be when they’re facing one of those two powerhouse teams.
“Let’s say we play 10 times. … We can take one,” Finnish bench boss Pasi Mustonen explained late Friday night about facing the Canadians in an IIHF world championship semifinal at the Sandman Centre Sunday.
“One beautiful night that night comes — maybe Sunday? Who knows?
“We have nothing to lose. The Canadians have everything to lose. That’s a catastrophe if they lose. And they know it and we know it. It’s a wonderful starting point for the game.”
And might that be a part of his pregame speech to his charges?
“You don’t have to be dumb as a coach, let’s put it this way,” he said.
Canada and Finland play the late semifinal Sunday (7:30 p.m. PST) at Sandman while the Americans and the Russians meet at 3 p.m. The final is Monday at 7:30 p.m. Canada and the U.S. have met in all 16 previous world championship finals. The Americans have won two straight and five of the last six.
Canada beat Finland 6-1 Thursday on the final night of preliminary-round play. According to the Hockey Canada media guide, Canada was 65-0-1 all-time against the Finns going into this tournament. That included a 3-0 win in a semifinal at last year’s worlds in Malmo, Sweden, before going on to fall 7-5 to the Americans in the gold-medal game.
Thursday’s loss forced Finland into a quarter-final Friday, where they downed the Czech Republic 5-0.
Mustonen’s squad is a team that will try to clog up the neutral zone and be opportunistic on the counter attack while relying heavily on star netminder Meeri Raisanen. They showed that against the Americans in the preliminary round of this tournament, getting 49 saves from Raisanen in a 2-1 loss.
Finland had a crack at tying things up late, but American goalie Jessie Vetter stoned Petra Nieminen from point-blank range with about six minutes to go.
“Our chance is that we have a good goalie and we play with great discipline,” Mustonen said.
In the preliminary win over Finland, Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin scored 1:04 into the contest, which helped force the Finns to open things up and rely less on the neutral zone trap.
Poulin said Saturday after practice that playing with speed and composure will be a key for Canada Sunday, but so will patience.
“If we don’t score right away in a game like that, we can’t get frustrated,” said Poulin, Canada’s No. 1 centre. “We have to keep working hard and keep focusing on our game plan.”
Canadian coach Laura Schuler refused to say Saturday who will start in goal Sunday. Emerance Maschmeyer started two of Canada’s three games, including making 18 saves against Finland. Charline Labonte got the call in the other game.
“I’m definitely going to keep that one in my back pocket,” Schuler said about who would be patrolling the Canadian crease.
The U.S. and Russians also met Thursday in preliminary action and the Americans came out of it with an 8-0 win.
The Russians defeated the Swedes 4-1 in a quarter-final Friday.
The Russians lost the bronzemedal game at last year’s worlds to the Finns by a 4-1 count. They had dropped a 13-1 decision to the U.S. in a semifinal.