Czechia defeated Finland on Friday in the bronze medal game at the IIHF World Junior Championships in Sweden after a dramatic third-period comeback.
The Czechs, who finished as the runner-up at last year’s tournament when they lost to host Canada, fell behind 5–2 late in the second period. Ondrej Becher scored in the final minute of the second to make it 5–3 and then Jiří Kulich added another about five minutes into the third period to cut the deficit to one. Then, with less than two minutes remaining in the game, Czechia scored two goals in a span of 15 seconds to take the lead.
The go-ahead goal came on a perfect shot from the point by Tomas Hamara that found its way through a forest of bodies and snuck past the Finnish goalie.
It was a dramatic moment that sounded even more dramatic on the home Czech broadcast.
🇨🇿 ok you gotta watch the Czech call of Tomas Hamara’s go ahead goal pic.twitter.com/HPwn9lHkcD
— Sens Prospects (@SensProspects) January 5, 2024
Hamara was selected by the Ottawa Senators in the third round of the 2022 NHL draft and currently plays for the Brantford Bulldogs in the OHL.
Czechia added two more empty-net goals to win 8–5. It was just the country’s fifth medal at the World Juniors since the breakup of the former Czechoslovakia.
