Czech Men’s Hockey Team Eliminates USA in Quarterfinals of the Olympics

By Cassandra Yany 2/23/2018

The Olympics are over for the US men’s hockey team, and they’re heading home without a medal. The Czech Republic eliminated team USA Tuesday in the quarterfinals that ended 3-2 in a shootout.

Following a 5-1 victory over Slovakia, USA was unable to keep the momentum going in order to lock in a spot in the semifinals.

Courtesy of Creative Commons

Ryan Donato put team USA on the board, scoring the first goal of the game six minutes into the period. This was the fifth goal of the Olympics for the Harvard standout, making him the fourth US player to score five or more goals in the Olympics since 1994. Towards the end of the first period, the Czechs Jon Kolar tied up the game for his first goal of the Games.

Tomas Kundratek scored eight minutes into the second period, giving the Czechs a 2-1 lead. Ten minutes later, the US tied the game with a short-handed tally of the stick of Jim Slater tying the game at 2.

After going scoreless through the third period and overtime, the game went into a shootout. The second shooter for the Czech team, Petr Koukal, scored the winning goal on USA goalie Ryan Zapolski. Czech goalie Pavel Francouz stopped each of team USA’s shots, allowing the Czech Republic to advance to the semifinals.

After two weeks together, this game marked the end of the Olympic run for the US squad. Team captain Brian Gionta said, “We just couldn’t put it together… We worked hard, we gave it everything we had. Unfortunately, we came up short.”

Stay tuned to webn.tv for more coverage and reaction throughout the week.