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Finns soundly beat Belarussians after soundly losing to U.S.
By Jody Genessy Deseret News Olympic specialist
WEST VALLEY CITY — Poor Belarus.
The U.S. men's hockey team kicked the hornets' nest, and Belarus just happened to be the unfortunate one to walk by it next.
In this case the hornets' nest was Finland, which took a damaging beating by the Americans on Friday night. It was the Belarussians who were in need of a couple of bottles of calamine lotion on Saturday after getting stung repeatedly by the Finns in an 8-1 blowout.
Teemu Selanne and Olli Jokinen led Finland's persistent — and much-improved — attack with two goals apiece.
"The way we played last night was not the way this team can play. We were nervous," said Selanne, whose Finland team was blanked by the U.S. 6-0 in the final round opener. "We just watched to see how Team USA was going to play hockey. We gave them way too much respect."
They weren't so respectful of Belarus.
"Obviously, it was a different kind of team out there," said Finland's Sami Kapanen, who scored one goal. "It was different than last night when we couldn't get the first goal. Today we did. It was a lot easier."
It only took 1 1/2 minutes for Finland to strike Saturday. Jokinen punched in the first of his two opening-period goals, and the rout was on. Selanne took turns scoring goals with Jokinen, and they got a lot of help as Finland built a 6-0 lead by the end of the second period.
Belarus, not as sharp as it had been in a 6-4 loss to Russia, gave its rowdy fans something to cheer about early in the third when Vasily Pankov deflected a shot into the net. But that was it for the underdogs, who were outshot 39-21.
Aki-Petteri Berg, Mikko Eloranta and Tomi Kallio also scored for the Finns. The bronze medalists from 1998 used this game to repair their injured psyches, following the crushing loss to the U.S. less than 20 hours before.
"Hopefully this team can build its momentum," Selanne said. "The best games are four and five (medal round). Those are really the games we look forward to and want to play well."
E-MAIL: jody@desnews.com
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February 17, 2002
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