Ice hockey team out of World Cup

Switzerland put two pucks into its own net in the opening minutes, helping Russia to an easy 6-0 victory in the ice hockey World Championship quarterfinals.

The Russians, seeking their first world championship title since 1993, will play Finland in the semifinals, a rematch of last year when they lost and eventually settled for a bronze medal.

Alexander Semin opened the scoring 1:14 into the game on Wednesday as Alexander Ovechkin screened goalie Martin Gerber.

Then the costly mistakes came for the Swiss. Maxim Afinogenov got credit for a goal when Swiss defenseman Raphael Diaz pushed the puck into his own net with his hand at 2:18.

Danis Zaripov was also given a goal that defenseman Philippe Furrer mistakenly shot into his own net 6:23 in.

“Maybe we were trying too much,” Swiss veteran Marc Reichert said. “One guy wanted to rim it around the boards and he missed the angle and it was in. The other tried to help the goalie and missed. You can’t blame those guys. It was just really unlucky.”

Afinogenov scored his second of the game, and Ovechkin and Sergei Fedorov had goals in the second period to make it 6-0. Evgeny Nabokov made 22 saves for the shutout.

“We needed to have a tight game to make it a game and it didn’t happen,” Swiss coach Ralph Krueger said. “A crazy set of circumstances put us in a hole we couldn’t get out of.”