Finland wins World Ringette Championships again, USA winner of President’s Pool

Published November 6, 2022

Finland won their eighth consecutive world championship over Canada. The world championships were held in Metro Arena, Espoo, Finland and Canada and Finland played on Friday the 4th and Sunday the 6th. Both finale games ended in Finland’s clear wins as the Finns were more efficient in scoring goals this year.

Photo: Timo Kupiainen

Finland started strong again as Anne Pohjola scored in just a bit over a minute. Canada only got more dangerous after this, creating many opportunities for scoring but couldn’t get the ring past Maria Perkkola. The Canadian defence kept the Finns in check for a while, until Roosa Salonen scored from the corner and Maija Väyrynen shot the ring in from a free pass. On the last seconds of the first period Susanna Tapani showed her skills off and made her way through the Canadian defence and scored.

The second period was an even fight and Canada was trying hard to score. Meanwhile, the Canadian defence was working hard keeping the Finns in check. Eventually Salonen was able to re-do her goal from the corner. Finland’s sixth goal came from Tapani’s stick again. Canada scored at the end of the period as well when Jenny Snowdon shot the ring behind Maria Perkkola’s back.

Finland started the third period with a bang as well. Väyrynen scored at one minute mark of the period. It wasn’t long after Canada scored their second goal, made by Gillian Dreger. The third period was very even and both teams defences were working well as no more goals were made during the third quarter. The fourth period, however, took a fast start again as Tapani skated her way to the goal and scored Finland’s eighth goal. Only a moment later Pohjola scored once again, this time from a free pass.

As the fourth period progressed, the Canadians took some penalties and their game play seemed to get a little disoriented because of it. Finland took advantage of the power play opportunities and scored four more goals during the last minutes of the fourth quarter. Three out of four were done on power play. Canada’s Jenny Snowdon scored beautifully once again, but it was way too late at this point. The game ended 13-3 for Finland.

– We have been working for this moment for the past three years. The week has been amazing! We have a great team. I am very grateful to be a part of this team and share this experience with them, Katariina Kurikko, a vice captain of Team Finland said after the game. The project has been long as the pandemic pushed the championships back by a year.

– I’m going to treasure this memory for a long time. We have had an amazing audience and an amazing team. This is making me speechless, Kurikko concluded.

– I really love competing. I love playing ringette at this level and the Finns obviously give us some really good competition. I love being around my team and we got to be together all week, Erika Kiviaho, the captain of Team Canada said after the game.

The MVP of the game for Team Canada was Gillian Dreger and Maria Perkkola for Team Finland. The MVP of Team Canada was Jenny Snowdon and the MVP for Team Finland Anne Pohjola. The MVP for whole of WRC 2022 was Susanna Tapani.

USA wins President’s trophy

Photo: Timo Kupiainen

USA and Sweden faced off for the third time in the President’s Trophy finale match. Sweden won all earlier games and made their way straight to the finale, when USA played against Czech yesterday to determine which team plays in the finale. Sweden has won USA twice this week but today the Americans were better.

The match was even, although USA had a very good start to the game. Nyah Bodnarchuck scored the first goal of the game in the first period as she skated behind the Swedish defence lines and was able to put the ring behind Kaisa Juntunen’s back. The match went on very evenly and neither of the teams scored until the third period.

USA got a good start to the third quarter of the game and scored very soon after the start. Sweden was also able to score their only goal of the game, when Sarah Esmail passed the ring to Anna Norrbom, who shot straight to the goal. USA’s Campbell Schnurr was on fire for the third period as she completed a hat trick within just minutes.

– My feelings are just over the top right now, I’m just so excited and so happy to be doing this as a team. It was hard work, very hard work, but I think we definitely brought it out and stuck together as a team. We dominated this week, Shaelyn Corasiniti, the captain of Team USA said, thrilled.

– Today we kept going and going and going but we didn’t really get where we wanted to in the offence zone. We started tough but we sort of fell back a little bit, Anna Norrbom said after the game. She was very pleased with their tournament and was very proud of her young team.

The MVP’s of the game were USA’s Brodnarcuck and Sweden’s Kajsa Frankenberg.