World Cham­pi­onship 2025: Second win! Austria prevail against France – top-divi­sion status secured

Austria's last World Championship victory over France dates back a full 21 years. At that time, on 24 April 2004, Marco Kasper was just two weeks old. On Friday afternoon, he introduced himself to Les Bleus after only 39 seconds, firing the puck into the net for 1:0 with a powerful shot. Seven minutes later, Vinzenz Rohrer, who was also named Best Player, was on hand to make it 2:0. In the 16th minute, Ramon Schnetzer capitalised on an error by France goalkeeper Antoine Keller, whose working day was over afterwards, to make it 3:0.

After 20 minutes, Austria were clearly on course for victory and could also rely on David Kickert at the back, who once again delivered a strong performance. Austria remained true to the principles of their previous matches. They worked extremely consistently in their own zone and always moved the puck out under control.

In the 34th minute, the post denied Rohrer the 4:0. At the end of the second period, Austria were closer to a fourth goal while shorthanded than France were to making it 1:3. Swiss-based Rohrer was again the centre of attention midway through the final period when he was first brought down in front of the French net and then took the resulting penalty shot himself. The puck ended up in the net, but the officials disallowed the goal.

Shortly afterwards, Rohrer was fouled again, but instead of receiving a penalty, France scored on the counter-attack while on the power play to make it 1:3.

In the 58th minute, Quentin Papillon made way for a sixth skater. To Marco Kasper's delight, he appeared to put the game beyond doubt with the 4:1. However, France reduced the deficit to 2:4 on the power play and took another risk by pulling their goalkeeper.

Once again, Austria could not be beaten in their own zone, winning the puck before Dominic Zwerger fed Peter Schneider, who sealed the 5:2 final score.

Head Coach Roger Bader: "I am proud of the entire World Championship and of all five games we have shown so far. We have received a great deal of praise, which is pleasing. We knew it would be a difficult game against France because they are an opponent on our level in terms of the rankings. France are a good nation and have been playing in the top division for years. You first have to beat them. We were very efficient at the start, scoring three goals from seven shots. That went perfectly. This start certainly helped us. We also had more chances in the middle period and really should have scored the fourth goal there. As it was, we had to sweat a little until the end."

Captain Thomas Raffl: "Staying in the top division was the first objective, but we are such an ambitious group that we are now looking ahead. The next game awaits on Sunday, and we need to bring our performance to the ice again. We are aiming for the horizon and want to take it game by game. There is an upswing when you know you can take your chances up front and be very compact defensively. At the same time, we experienced against Slovakia what it is like to have a lead and how quickly momentum can turn against you. I think we stayed focused today, made sure we did the little things right and were rewarded with the win in the end."

Austria's top-division status secured

In the evening game, hosts Sweden recorded a 4:0 win over Slovenia, securing Austria's place in the Top Division. With their fourth successive season in the top division, the ÖEHV side have already secured participation in the 2026 World Championship in Switzerland, taking place from 15 to 31 May in Zurich and Fribourg.

2025 IIHF ICE HOCKEY WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

9 – 25 May 2025, Stockholm, Sweden & Herning, Denmark

Austria vs. France 5:2 (3:0,0:0,2:2)
Fri., 16 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 16:20, 4.873
Austria scorers: Marco Kasper (1th,58th/EN), Vinzenz Rohrer (8th), Ramon Schnetzer (16th), Peter Schneider (60th/EN)
France scorers: Jordann Perret (51th/PP1), Pierre-Édouard Bellemare (59th/PP1)

Austria lined up with:

Goalies: 30 Kickert David; 33 Vorauer Florian (backup)
Line 1: 92 Unterweger Clemens - 32 Wolf Bernd; 16 Zwerger Dominic - 96 Kasper Marco - 3 Peter Schneider
Line 2: 91 Heinrich Dominique - 78 Nickl Thimo; 5 Raffl Thomas - 48 Thaler Lucas - 52 Huber Paul
Line 3: 45 Biber Gregor - 12 Maier David; 7 Lebler Brian - 21 Haudum Lukas - 19 Rohrer Vinzenz
Line 4: 18 Stapelfeldt Paul - 4 Schnetzer Ramon; 95 Kainz Lukas - 26 Achermann Oliver - 80 Kraus Nikolaus

Other matches:

Slovenia vs. Austria
Sun, 18 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 16:20, live on ORF SPORT + and ORF 1

Latvia vs. Austria
Tue, 20 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 12:20, live on ORF 1

Already played:

Canada vs. Austria 5:1 (0:1,2:0,3:0)
Thu, 15 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 20:20, 5.259
Canada scorers: Nathan MacKinnon (22nd/PP1, 34), Travis Konecny (49), Will Cuylle (52), Sidney Crosby (59)
Austria scorer: Vinzenz Rohrer (12th minute) 

Austria vs. Slovakia 3:2 after penalties (2:0,0:1,0:1,0:0,1:0)
Mon, 12 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 16:20, 4.375
Austria scorers: Peter Schneider (8 mins), Marco Kasper (12 mins) – Lukas Haudum and Peter Schneider score in the penalty shootout.
Slovakia goalscorers: Samuel Honzek (27th), Matúš Sukeľ (51th) – Martin Chromiak scored in the penalty shootout.

Sweden vs. Austria 4:2 (0:0,1:1,3:1)
Sat, 10 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 16:20, 12.530
Sweden goalscorers: Mika Zibanejad (34/PP1, 58), Jonas Brodin (58), Alexander Wennberg (59/EN)
Austria goalscorers: Benjamin Baumgartner (26), Marco Kasper (53) 

Austria vs. Finland 1:2 (1:2,0:0,0:0)
Fri, 09 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 16:20, 6.822
Austria goalscorer: Bernd Wolf (14th)
Finland goalscorers: Patrik Puistola (5th), Juuso Pärssinen (8th)

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