19 World Championships but still no gold for Andres Ambühl

Nobody has played more IIHF World Championship top-division tournaments or games than Switzerland’s Andres Ambühl. This year’s tournament was his 19th and the final game on Sunday was his 141th World Championship game. Ambühl had five assists in this year’s tournament, raising his career total to 50 – tied for ninth all-time with Ilya Kovalchuk. He is the active leader in assists and second in active goals and points behind Roman Červenka, who captained Czechia to the gold medal with a 2-0 win against Ambühl and the Swiss.

“I thought we were pretty close and I thought eventually it was going to turn in our favor,” Ambühl said about the game, which was scoreless until almost halfway through the third period.

“This is a great group,” he said about this year’s Swiss team, which only lost twice in 10 games. “I’m really proud of the whole group – how we performed throughout the tournament, how we battled for each other. It’s too bad we didn’t get the reward we wanted at the end.”

Sunday’s game was the second time Ambühl has been to the World Championship final but, unlike Červenka, he’s never won gold. Switzerland never has. Ambühl’s previous final was a decisive 5-1 defeat to Sweden in 2013. The Swiss also made the final without him in 2018, losing 3-2 in a shootout, also to Sweden.

“At the end, I don’t think it matters,” Ambühl sighed when asked to compare the finals. “Silver is silver and gold is gold, and we didn’t get gold. It always hurts.”

Prior to the 2013 final, Switzerland hadn’t won a medal in 60 years. Even when Ambühl started competing at the Worlds in 2004, the team was usually touch-and-go to make the quarterfinals, and wasn’t a big threat to go beyond. Now Switzerland regularly enters the World Championship as a solid medal contender.

“Swiss ice hockey has definitely improved in recent years and that’s good to see,” the longtime HC Davos captain nodded.

When asked if he thought a Swiss gold medal was in the near future, he said, “Yeah, of course. If you look at these tournaments, there are so many teams that have a chance to win it, so why not us? It’s just one game and it’s about small details that decide it. So yeah, I think so.”

But 40-year-old Ambühl is less certain whether he will be on the team that finally brings the gold medal back to Switzerland.

“I’m not thinking about that at the moment,” he said about a 20th World Championship next year. “We’ll see what the future brings in the next few days but at the moment, that’s not in my head.”