Jussi Jokinen scored three goals to lead Finland past archrival Sweden 5-2 and win the Karjala Tournament for the seventh straight year on Sunday.
Jokinen, who notched the game-winner against Russia the day before, completed his hat trick before a boisterous, flag-waving sellout crowd of 12,850 at Hartwall Arena with an empty-netter 34 seconds from the end.
Jokinen was credited with two other goals, but television replays clearly showed that Swedish defenseman Per Hallberg accidently tipped the puck past his own goalie Daniel Henriksson on both occasions.
Finland, runner-up at the World Cup in September, finished the four-nation tournament with six points, one ahead of Sweden. The Czech Republic was third with four points and Russia last with three.
Alexander Skugariov had two goals and two assists for Russia to beat the Czechs 6-3 in its only victory in the tournament, the first in this season's European Hockey Tour.
Sweden, needing only a tie to win its first tournament outside Sweden since 1998, took the lead on Detroit forward Henrik Zetterberg's wrist shot past Fredrik Norrena just 2:38 in while the Finns were short-handed. Petteri Nummelin tied it just 1:25 later with another power-play goal and Tomi Kallio put the Finns ahead for good late in the opening period.
Dallas forward Mathias Tjarnqvist scored on a power play to narrow Sweden's deficit to 3-2.
Ilya Kovalchuk, the Atlanta Thrashers sharpshooter who tied for first place in the NHL's goalscoring race last season, added two goals and one assist for Russia.
Kovalchuk scored his second into the empty net with 13 seconds left after the Czechs pulled their goalie for an extra attacker. Jiri Burger pulled the Czechs within two at 5-3 with 1:52 left.
Aleksei Simakov and Aleksei Kaigorodov also scored for Russia. Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals, who was the NHL's top draft pick in June, set up two goals.
Marek Zidlicky and Radek Dvorak scored the other Czech goals.
The other European Hockey Tour events are the Baltica Cup in Moscow in December and the Sweden Hockey Games next February.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier