Russia beat Finland to make ice-hockey world championship final
Russia's national ice-hockey side has beaten Finland 4-0 in the semifinals of the 2008 IIHF World Championship in Canada, and will now face the hosts in the final on May 18.
Russia avenged a 3-2 defeat to Finland in overtime at last year's semi final match in Moscow with goals from Sergei Fedorov, Danis Zaripov, Alexei Morozov and Maxim Sushinsky.
The final against Canada, which beat Sweden 5-4 in the other semifinal encounter, will be Russia's first appearance in the final of the IIHF Worl
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d Championship since 2001, when the team lost to 4-3 Slovakia in Sweden. Russia has not won the tournament since 1993.
"If Finland had scored first," said Fedorov after the match, "the game could have turned out a lot harder for us."
"To be honest though," he added, "the Finns didn't offer up very fast hockey."
"We had the best defense in the whole competition in that game," said Yevgeniy Nabokov, the side's goalkeeper.
Russian fans will be hoping that both the team's defense and attack perform as well when they take on Canada in the decider.
Russia's national ice-hockey side has beaten Finland 4-0 in the semifinals of the 2008 IIHF World Championship in Canada, and will now face the hosts in the final on May 18.
