IIHF - Day One doesn't define a host team

Host Finland lost 4-1 to the U.S. in its opener at the 2023 Worlds, but that doesn't mean the defending champions are heading for a disaster.

photo: © International Ice Hockey Federation / Andrea Cardin

When Finland got outskated and outplayed in its 4-1 opening loss to the U.S., it was a bit of a shock for fans of the defending champions.

Of course, there was a happy reversal for Finnish supporters who were tempted to call the police, the fire brigade, and the ambulance after that first game. The host nation bounced back, downing Germany 4-3 the very next day.

By any measure, the Day One loss cannot be viewed as an emergency, a sign that there is something fundamentally amiss.

The modern history of the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship reveals that neither a win nor a loss for a host team on Day One automatically predicts how it will fare overall.

Only two teams in the 21st century have won the Worlds at home. Sweden, which broke the 27-year-old “home ice curse” in Stockholm in 2013, started off by losing 3-2 to Switzerland. Conversely, last year, Finland beat Norway 5-0 in Tampere.

Looking at the bigger picture shows even more clearly that you can’t read too much into Day One.

A blatant example is Russia’s 8-1 romp over France at the 2000 Worlds in St. Petersburg. Maxim Sushinski’s hat trick in that opener paled into insignificance when the stacked hosts stumbled to a shocking 11th-place finish.

In 2006, the first time Latvia ever hosted, hopes were high for a quarter-final berth. Coach Pyotr Vorobyov’s men set a hopeful tone with a 1-1 tie against the world champion Czechs on Day One. But the Latvians didn’t make it out of the old-format Qualification Round – including an 11-0 loss to the Sidney Crosby-led Canadians – and they finished tenth.

In 2009, the host Swiss parlayed the momentum from their 1-0 opening win over France into a 3-2 victory versus archrival Germany two days later on Mark Streit’s overtime winner. But coach Ralph Krueger’s squad fell just short of the medal round in ninth place.

How about the (rarer) host nations who lost their first game?

Well, in 2014, Belarus got thumped 6-1 by the U.S., but claimed an all-time best seventh-place finish after falling 3-2 to Sweden in the quarter-finals.

The following year in Prague, the Czechs debuted with a 6-5 shootout loss to the Swedes and ended up in fourth place. A disappointment, yes, but not totally shocking when you look at the powerful rosters from Canada (Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Ryan O’Reilly), Russia (Alexander Ovechkin, Yevgeni Malkin, Ilya Kovalchuk), and the U.S. (Connor Hellebuyck, Seth Jones, Jack Eichel) that won gold, silver, and bronze respectively.

We could go on and on. But to provide a quick overview, since the year 2000, host teams have earned 17 wins, six losses, and two ties on Day One. (Note: Finland and Sweden’s opening games as co-hosts in both 2012 and 2013 are included in this total.) The average final placement for host nations in the span of 2000 to 2022 is 6.5, and they've finished anywhere from first to 16th (Austria, 2005).

After Friday’s opener, players from both sides put Finland’s situation in good perspective.

Teemu Hartikainen, the Finnish goal-scorer, said: “We need to get better in our work ethic and work more and more. It's all 60 minutes. That’s what it takes to win these games.”

U.S. assistant captain Alex Tuch wasn’t discounting Finland either after potting two goals: “Defending champs, defending Olympic champs as well...Finland’s a really good team. They have a lot of firepower, a lot of depth. They work hard and play their system well.”

Bottom line: if the Finns build on their win over Germany, tighten up defensively and play the 200-foot game that has defined the Jukka Jalonen era, and then make the final on 28 May, nobody will quibble about what happened against the Americans on Day One. Nobody.