Early this morning, Russian youth hockey team has broken its straight the gold medals by losing to the Swedes at the World Junior Hockey Championship in Canada.

      The Swedish team won 1:0. Just as at the first meeting of the teams at this tournament, regulation time wasn’t enough to decide the better side, so the game was decided in overtime, when Mika Zibanejad stole the puck from Russian Nikita Gusev at the blue line and scored on a backhand killer. These are the first gold medals of the Sweden youth hockey team since 1981.

      Many experts speak about tiredness of the Russian team after the match of principle against Canada, when the Russians defeated their opponents 5-1.

      This time the Swedes looked fresher and more offensively aggressive. They outshot Russia 39-4 during the first two periods as goalie Andrey Makarov looked the only visible figure among the Russians, countering about 50 strikes in the regulation time and 10 strikes in the overtime.

      Canada defeated Finland 4:0 and took the third place at the tournament. The next World Junior Hockey Championship will be held in 2013, in the Russian city of Ufa, Bashkortostan Republic.

Sources: Lenta.ru Gazeta.ru Image: nr2.ru