Great news from junior hockey –  2016 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships (U20) gathered the future of the best hockey nations in the world in a spectacular event. The most spectacular game, though, was the final, when Finland met Russia.

The final of the 2016 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships took place last night in the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki.
The home team faced up against the Russians in front of 13,479 fired up fans. The Russians took the lead twice during the game but the Fins tied it up each time.

In the third period it was the Fins turn to take the lead to 3-2 and it looked like they will be cruising to a well deserved victory when with only six seconds left on the clock Russia scored tying the game up at three.

At 1:33 in the overtime Kasperi Kapanen the son of Finnish hockey legend Sami Kapanen eluded his defenseman scoring on a wrap-around and winning the gold for the Fins. This gold is the second in the last three years for the Finnish juniors and the analysts are calling it the greatest era in the Finnish under 20 history who won gold only four times so far.

There was an immense celebration after the final whistle. The players’ gold medals were handed out by the president of the country. Finland showed that is a true hockey country by setting a new record for ticket sales for Europe, which was over 200,000 tickets. This though, does not even come close to North America (last time in Alberta the number of fans that came out for the games exceeded 600,000).
In December the Canadians can go for a new audience record for the junior games because on the 26th of December they will kick off the 2017 games in Toronto and Montreal.