After the results of the four games on Wednesday, Friday's schedule will feature four border wars. The semifinals are Canada vs USA and Sweden vs Finland, while Czechia and Slovakia will meet for fifth place and Switzerland and Germany for seventh.
Scroll down for Friday’s schedule.
Finland 3 – Switzerland 4 (0-0, 1-1, 2-2, 0-1)
The score was tied 1-1 midway through the third period, then Finland went up 2-1, Switzerland came back to take a 3-2 lead, the Finns tied it again in the last minute but Lennox Hirt’s shot in overtime banked in off the skate of Sol Fueter.
“I feel like the longer the game went, we got more confident, played more with the puck and that’s what went our way in the end and got us the win,” said Yanis Lutz, who had a goal and an assist in the game and leads Switzerland with four points in three games.
The win gave the Swiss their first two points of the tournament, which weren’t enough to lift them out of fourth place in the Brno group, but gives them all sorts of confidence heading into the seventh-place game. The Finns, on the other hand, lost a chance to secure their spot in the semis, leaving them to watch the last game nervously.
That result opened the door for the Czechs just a crack wider – with the Finnish loss, they could now advance with a win of any kind over Canada in the nightcap.
Finland’s Oscar Hemming: I Have ‘A Better Hockey IQ’ Than Brother Emil
Last season, 16-year-old Oscar Hemming was the top scorer in
Finland’s top U-18 league with 63 points in 31 games for Kiekko
Espoo. He also had 19 points in 31 U-20 games. That makes him one of
the most dangerous offensive players on the Finnish team at this
year’s Hlinka Gretzky Cup and he demonstrated that in the team’s
opener against Canada, <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/international/latest-news/canada-edges-finland-sweden-wins-big-in-hlinka-gretzky-cup-openers">recording a goal and an assist in the team’s
5-3 loss</a>.
USA 8 – Germany 1 (3-0, 2-0, 3-1)
The Americans wasted little time ensuring there would be no late drama in this game, scoring three times before the game was five minutes old. The score was 8-0 with 7:45 to play when Jack Peterka scored for Germany, but all that did was spoil the team’s shutout, with Brady Knowling and Aidan Hesse sharing the duties between the pipes.
Nolan Duskocy and Blake Zielinski each had a goal and two assists for the Americans, while Caden Harvey Scored twice.
Slovakia 0 – Sweden 7 (0-2, 0-2, 0-3)
The Slovaks finished the group stage with only one goal scored, while the Swedes outscored their opponents 22-3. In this game, the Swedes got three points each from Axel Elofsson and Marcus Nordmark, giving the latter a tournament-leading nine points at the end of the group stage.
Czechia 0 – 5 Canada (0-1, 0-0, 0-4)
The Canadians were already in the semis and the Czechs needed a win, either in regulation or overtime, to join them. Before an energetic crowd of 3,609 – the largest crowd so far in Brno – they hung around for as long as they could, but eventually, the Canadians pulled away.
Czechia outshot Canada 9-7 in the first period but it was Liam Ruck with his first of two on the night who scored the only goal. After that, the Canadians gave the Czechs very little in the way of offensive chances, even during a five-minute power play midway through the second period after Dimian Zhilkin was sent to the showers for kneeing.
Beckham Edwards and Daxon Rudolph also had two points and Gavin Betts made 23 saves for the shutout.
Friday’s schedule:
Game
for 5th/6th places: Czechia – Slovakia (Brno), 15:30 / 9:30 AM
Game
for 7th/8th places: Switzerland – Germany (Trenčín), 15:30 / 9:30
AM
Semifinal:
Canada – USA (Brno), 19:00 / 1:00 PM
Semifinal:
Sweden – Finland (Trenčín), 19:00 / 1:00 PM
Venues, Schedule For 2025 Hlinka Gretzky Cup
The Czech Ice Hockey Association and Hockey Slovakia jointly
announced this week the <a href="https://hlinkagretzkycup.cz/eng/zapasy.asp">schedule for the 2026 Hlinka Gretzky Cup</a> –
an annual summer tournament for players entering their final U18
season.