Victory for the high-flying Czechs

The Czechs got off to a fast start, opening the scoring at 4:58 with a single power play goal from David Spacek. It was the third goal of the tournament for the defender, who now leads all smarts by three.

They had a great chance to double their lead after a short time but Nikita Kawabe tackled Robin Sapusek in a breakaway attempt. But they reached the second goal later in the same period. Philip Senn mishandled his own puck, and Gabriel Storck was in the right place at the right time, hitting a quick backhand from the hole at 17:04 to give the Czech Republic a 2-0 lead.

The Czechs started the second half by icing the ball half a dozen times in the opening minutes, and shortly before the halfway mark coach Tobias Apstreeter changed goalkeepers, shooting Koap and giving time to Simon Wolf. He actually went through two periods, allowing nine goals against Canada. Tonight he allowed a goal on his first shot when Brabnik sent a perfect pass past Omelar at 9:38 to make it 3-0.

However, the Germans resisted the advance and reduced the lead after three minutes, thanks to a wonderful individual effort from Veit Oswald. His quick shot was blocked, but the puck bounced off the sideboards and hit Oswald before Suchanik could react.

Unfortunately, the team couldn’t extract any more emotion from the goal, and the Czechs scored two late goals to put the game away. Szturc made a clever pass to Rysavy, who is standing right in front of Wolf. Resave quickly turned around and found the other side at 4:27. After just 47 seconds, Peter Hauser scored from an almost impossible angle, a shot that Wolf would no doubt want to return.

Putting an exclamation point into the night, the Czechs added two more from third place, just 29 seconds behind. Szmilar blocked another great pass from Storck, then Jakub Koss tipped it 7-1 at 5:02. Jerry Tishak finished the scoring at 17:23 with a shot high over Wolfe’s glove to end the third period of the second period.