First World Cham­pi­onship goal

At the IIHF U20 World Championship in Canada Austria's U20 national team also lost their third preliminary-round game. However, they scored their first goal of the tournament in the 1:7 defeat to Russia at Rogers Place in Edmonton. Senna Peeters scored to make it 1:4 in the 28th minute, securing the second period with his goal.

Favourites Russia laid the foundations for this victory in the opening seven minutes, which began with a converted penalty. "Until that penalty, we had even had more shots on goal than Russia," said Head Coach Roger Bader. "It was certainly our best game at this World Championship. Our aim was to improve with every game. We managed that again. We created more scoring chances than in the previous games and were also able to keep up with Russia better in terms of skating. The second period in particular was very good from us. We certainly had more opportunities to score a second goal. The fact that we were able to win a period against Russia is excellent for our team."

Goalscorer Peeters was also pleased with the game: "We have become more accustomed to the pace with every game. We are working ever harder. Now we have one game left in which we will give everything once again. We still have an opportunity at this World Championship that we can take. Once again, it will come down to our goalkeeper."

The Czech Republic await in the final preliminary-round game on New Year's Eve (MEZ: 31st December, 20:00), live on ORF Sport+. "The Czech Republic are also a great ice hockey nation. We know how strong they are. They have big defencemen and their defence is very good. But anything can happen in one game. We dream of being able to pull off an upset against the Czech Republic," said Bader.

2021 IIHF U20 World Championship Top Division

25th December 2020 - 5th January 2021
Venue
Edmonton/Canada

Participants
Group A: Canada, Finland, Switzerland, Slovakia, Germany
Group B: Russia, Sweden, USA, Czech Republic, Austria

Schedule (Edmonton local time, MEZ +8 hours)
25.12.2020, 12:00: Switzerland - Slovakia (0:0,0:0,0:1)
25.12.2020, 16:00: Germany - Finland 3:5 (0:2,2:3,1:0)
25.12.2020, 19:30: Russia - USA 5:3 (1:1,3:0,1:2)

26.12.2020, 12:00: Sweden - Czech Republic 7:1 (1:1,3:0,3:0)
26.12.2020, 16:00: Germany - Canada 2:16 (1:4,0:7,1:5)
26.12.2020, 19:30: USA - Austria 11:0 (1:0,6:0,4:0)
Goals: Helleson (16), Zegras (25, 32), Farinacci (26), Brisson (29/PP, 44), Boldy (35, 39/PP, 46), Berard (43), Colangelo (50)
Penalty minutes: 4 and 4 respectively, plus a game misconduct penalty (Wimmer)

27.12.2020, 12:00: Finland - Switzerland 4:1 (1:1,1:0,2:0)
27.12.2020, 16:00: Slovakia - Canada 1:3 (0:1,0:0,1:2)
27.12.2020, 19:30: Czech Republic - Russia 2:0 (0:0,1:0,1:0)

28.12.2020, 16:00: Austria - Sweden 0:4 (0:1,0:2,0:1)
Goals: Gunler (18/PP, 31), Niederbach (25/PP), Raymond (53)
Penalty minutes: 8 and 0 respectively
28.12.2020, 19:30: Slovakia - Germany 3:4 after overtime (1:1,2:2,0:0)

29.12.2020, 12:00: USA - Czech Republic 7:0 (0:0,3:0,4:0)
29.12.2020, 16:00: Canada - Switzerland 10:0 (1:0,4:0,5:0)
29.12.2020, 19:30: Austria - Russia 1:7 (0:4,1:0,0:3)
Goals: Peeters (28) and Amirov (5/penalty shot), Podkolzin (7, 14), Khusnutdinov (17), Kynazev (42/PP), Afanasiev (58), Gritsyuk (59)
Penalty minutes: 4 and 4 respectively, plus a misconduct penalty (Safonov)

30.12.2020, 12:00: Finland - Slovakia
30.12.2020, 16:00: Switzerland - Germany
30.12.2020, 19:30: Russia - Sweden

31.12.2020, 12:00: Czech Republic - Austria (LIVE ORF Sport+)
31.12.2020, 16:00: Canada - Finland
31.12.2020, 19:30: Sweden - USA

02.01.2021: Quarter-finals
04.01.2021: Semi-finals
05.01.2021: Final games

Format
As all other U20 World Championship tournaments for the 2020/21 season have been cancelled, there will be neither promotion nor relegation this year. Therefore, there will also be no relegation games for the fifth-placed teams in the groups in Edmonton. All participants will also compete in the IIHF U20 Top Division in Canada in the 2021/22 season.

Further information at...