My favorite hockey team became the Swedish champions yesterday! And what a victory it was.
They've been the favorites from the the very start of the series in the fall. And they lived up to the expectations by dominating the series, being the number one throughout the whole season. They've left the other teams to battle for second position.
The playoffs started well and until the final there wasn't really any problems. In the final they met Linköping HC which ended up second in the series, a very good team. It was good to see these two teams meet in the final as they had been the best two teams during the season.
The final is played best of seven matches and started out with LHC winning the first two games. Things were looking a bit slim. The third game when to sudden death and luckily HV71 managed to win which was just what they needed. In the two next games HV71 dominated the game and there were times when LHC must have felt completely humiliated, especially when HV made three goal being one man short during a single period. Those kinds of things just don't happen, in particular with teams as good as these. The match had now turned, HV71 leading three games to two.
The final match became a very even game with HV suffering from a lot of penalties. LHC also had their share of problems with referee decisions not going their way. After full time they had two goals each and HV71 was one man short for the first two minutes of sudden death. LHC had been playing well at the end of the third period and the match seemed to be going their way. But HV being experts in killing penalties didn't give LHC much of a chance. After five minutes of sudden death they managed to finish off the match. It wasn't the most beautiful goal in the history of hockey but it made them the Swedish champions.
Even though I'm heavily biased I must say that it was some time since there was such a worthy winner in the Swedish hockey league.
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