Game 47 of the World Championships, the final match of the preliminary stages for the bottom two teams in Group A did not look look very promising tie beforehand.
Great Britain, the lowest ranked team in the competition, ranked 22 verses France, ranked 13. Neither team had won a game in the tournament so far and were some of the lowest scoring teams in the whole competition - Sweden’s top four players had scored more than these two teams put together.
But in a “winner-takes-all” match only one team would remain in the top division of international hockey and qualifying for the 2020 championships in Switzerland.
The British team played a completely different type of hockey than in the other six losses in the tournament where they had let in 38 goals and only scored 5. But that was partly due to the fact that whilst they were definitely underdogs, France were also there for the taking as they themselves had let in 31 goals whilst only scoring 9.
Of the two, only the French team had players who have played in the SHL or Allsvenskan. That including their third line defenseman, Kevin Hacquefueille, pictured above playing for Pantern IK in 2018. But despite their deeper international experience, including more NHL games, they seemed surprised by the Brits aggression as huge, legal mid-ice hits leveled the Gaelic forwards time and again in the first period.
However, it was the French who took the advantage scoring first in the second period and then adding two goals in six seconds to lead the match 3-0 at the halfway point.
This was Britain’s first tournament in the highest division of hockey for 25 years and the last time the nation had scored 4 goals in a World Cup match was 1962. And their opponents had been in the top flight since 2004 and had won many similar tight matches in the last 15 years.
But after the inevitable timeout, Team GB took the game to their rivals. And when they scored a second goal with 1:56 to go in the period their fans screamed as though they had already won sensing an upset was possible.
However, it would take a goal in the third period and one of the most dramatic 3-on-3 overtime periods I’ve ever seen for the Brits to produce their own unlikely “miracle on ice” (See OT from 19:05 in the IHUKTV video, below).
How the French didn’t score in the three mad, goalmouth scrambles in the first two minutes of extra time has to be seen to be believed. But somehow Ben Bowns kept the puck out of the net.
And then came the counterattack from former Rockford Ice Hogs (AHL) defenseman David Phillips. As the French mistakenly tried to cover him with two players, that left former Norfolk Admirals (ECHL) forward Ben Davies alone in front of net where he skillfully beat netminder Florian Hardy to send Great Britain to their first back-to-back world championships since 1952.
@ABritOnThinIce1
