The Swiss voice in the world since 1935
Top stories
Stay in touch with Switzerland

Finns shatter Swiss dreams of ice hockey gold

hockey fans
Silence instead of jubilation on Zurich's Langstrasse after World Cup dream shattered Keystone-SDA

Countless ice hockey fans cheered on the Swiss national team in the bars on Zurich's Langstrasse on Sunday evening. But cheers quickly turned to silence, according to a reporter from the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Finland won the ice hockey world championship for the fifth time on Sunday, beating hosts Switzerland 1-0 in overtime.

And suddenly it was as quiet as a mouse on Langstrasse. Where previously there had been cheering and shouts of “Hopp Schwiiz!” (“Come on, Switzerland!”) from numerous bars.

A woman sitting in front of the Peeeng bar, who hadn’t looked at the large television with the live broadcast for a moment, asked the crowd: “What happened?” There was no answer. And then she realised: the dream had been shattered. Finland had scored the match’s only goal shortly after 11pm.

After finishing runner-up in the previous two years, Switzerland had hoped for more this time in front of its home crowd in Zurich.

The Swiss fans quickly poured out of the bars on Langstrasse and made their way home. Some disappointed, others angry.

+ Ice hockey World Cup cushions Zurich hotel losses resulting from Middle East conflict

Celebration for silver

Yet they watched the final with so much excitement. And so much confidence – just like all those who had made the pilgrimage to the official fan zone in Altstetten. This had to be closed at short notice in the afternoon for safety reasons due to a heavy thunderstorm. However, it soon filled up and the city police announced on platform X that no more people were allowed in.

Despite the defeat in the final, the Swiss ice hockey team will be feted on Monday evening: Zurich will welcome the team to the Volkshaus from 5pm. A small consolation for all the disappointed fans. And the World Championship silver medallists.

Adapted from German by AI/ts

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch

External Content

Related Stories

Popular Stories

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR