About an Ice Hockey League for Engineers and a Clash of Titans

GRANADA – Plenty of hockey games today, 7 February at the 27^th Winter Universiade in Granada, Spain. The men’s tournament started with Korea vs Sweden, a genuine thriller of a game that went in Overtime. However, the OT ended undecided which brought the game to the penalty shoot-out, which was eventually won by Sweden.

The Nordic country participated in Trentino’s ice hockey tournament (2013 WU) after a hiatus of 45 years and seems to be on track again. “Our participation in Italy two years ago gave us some credit back home”, explains Joachim Thomson, the team captain of the ‘Tre Kronor’. “At the beginning nobody believed in us, but in Trentino we proved we belong here and for this year’s edition, we were able to bring even some better players, although the majority of the players are from the Swedish ice hockey league of engineering schools”, the student from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm added. “We have a bigger following now and our players got some recognition in their schools now. The League started some years ago and continues to develop. With Russia and Canada we were in a tough pool so this victory is good for us.”

The most anticipated match of the day however, was the clash between Canada and Russia. The game turned out a very physical match between these two hockey powers. Trailing two goals behind, Canada managed to turn the tables into a 5-3 victory.

USA confronted Kazakhstan in another thriller that had to be continued in overtime and finally ended in a penalty shoot-out win for Team USA putting a 3-2 on the scoreboard.

In the women’s tournament Japan beat USA 4-1 while China blanked host Spain 12-0.

Text & Photos by Christian Pierre, Press Officer