By Philip O’Connor
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Tage Thompson fired a sudden-death winner for Team USA as they claimed a thrilling 1-0 victory over Switzerland in the final of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Championship on Sunday, their first gold medal at the tournament since 1933.
After impressing with their free-flowing attacking play earlier in the tournament, both teams engaged in an enthralling and bruising tactical battle that remained scoreless for the entire 60 minutes, prompting the overtime period that saw the teams reduced from five to three players on the ice, plus their goaltenders.
Swiss net-minder Leonardo Genoni played superbly throughout, but there was little he could do when Thompson broke forward and drove home the winning goal two minutes and two seconds into the overtime period to claim the victory.
After an intense first period, Conor Garland had a chance to put the U.S. into the lead at the 5:38 mark in the second when his side were awarded a penalty shot for a hooking offence by Swiss defenceman Michael Fora.
The American forward did his best to off-balance Genoni, but the Swiss goaltender didn’t take the bait, standing firm to prevent him from scoring.
After some scrappy play from both teams, Team USA grabbed control of the game in the middle of the second, exerting enormous pressure on the Swiss goal, without managing to make a breakthrough.
They had to endure a nervy end to the period after Thompson was penalised for tripping, but they almost broke the deadlock just before the horn as Frank Nazar fired a spinning shot goalwards, only to see it saved by Genoni.
The third period saw the Americans increase their shot count, getting up as far as 39 in total to Switzerland’s 24, but neither side could find the net and the game went to sudden-death overtime.
Switzerland had a couple of decent possessions before Thompson took matters into his own hands, picking up the puck in centre ice and advancing before rattling it home to silence the thousands of Swiss fans in attendance and spark a joyous rush from the bench as the Americans celebrated their first world championship gold in more than 90 years.
Earlier on Sunday, co-hosts Sweden and Denmark met in the bronze-medal match with the Swedes running out 6-2 winners to take third place, and the Danes finishing fourth to secure their best-ever placing following their seismic defeat of Canada at the quarter-final stage on Thursday.
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor; editing by Clare Fallon and Toby Davis)
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