Thursday, February 21, 2002
Alfie: 'We just didn't get the breaks'
By BRUCE GARRIOCH -- Team Sun
WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah -- The Swedish news agency TT declared yesterday's game against Belarus "Sweden's worst-ever Olympic fiasco."
That about says it all.
And while Daniel Alfredsson couldn't explain Sweden's shocking 4-3 loss to Belarus yesterday in the Olympic quarter-finals, he maintained his country will survive.
"The people (in Sweden) are probably going to be like us, they're going to be in shock because we lost the game," said the Ottawa Senators captain. "That's the way it is in hockey ... anything can happen.
"There's nothing wrong with Swedish hockey. The way we played the whole tournament, we were the better team," he said.
"Our hockey is fine. The system is great. We just didn't get the breaks. (Belarus) wasn't trying to score, they were just trying to keep it close and catch a break."
But as the Swedish players quietly walked out of the E Center, their national media were already getting out the carving knives to do a number on the team.
Yesterday's quarter-final flop is already being called the greatest "sports choke" in Swedish history since a 3-2 loss to Japan in soccer during the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
And the players know they likely haven't heard the last, or the worst, of the criticism from their hockey-mad nation.
What's most frustrating for the Swedes (3-0 in round-robin) is they struggled to find the back of the net despite 47 shots against Belarus.
Alfredsson believes much of the credit belongs to Andrei Mezin.
"Their goaltender stood on his head," said Alfredsson, who had one shot hit the crossbar. "We just couldn't put the puck in the net.
"We knew they had skilled individuals, but we also knew that we were the better team. We played hard, but they did a good job holding us up and clogging up the neutral zone. They didn't give up."
Coach Hardy Nilsson compared the loss to the U.S.'s Miracle on Ice win. "This was the kind of game that's going to happen," said Nilsson. "It's happened before, at least in 1980, and it will happen again. It's a playoff game ... win it or you're gone."
And the Swedes are gone.
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2002 Games Men's Hockey Coverage
