The points king of the Lions admitted: "Gathering for the bronze match was surprisingly difficult"

MILANO.

The Lions celebrate bronze at the Milano-Cortina Olympics. In the bronze match, they defeated Slovakia impressively 6-1.

In the internal scoring tournament of Finland, Joel Armia surprisingly won. The fourth line winger totaled 3+5 in six games. Against Slovakia, Armia scored one goal and assisted two.

– It didn’t surprise me, Armia made the journalists laugh right from the start.

Armia described the processing of the semifinal disappointment quite straightforwardly.

– Good tournament. Gathering myself from yesterday… the locker room was full of guys who want to win the brightest medal. Of course, it was a really big disappointment. Gathering myself for today was surprisingly difficult, I have to admit. We played really well today, Armia said.

– I probably wasn’t the happiest in the morning. You just have to dig from somewhere, and you realize that winning a medal in such a tournament is a big deal. I am proud of every guy.

Against Slovakia, Finland led the match from the eighth minute onwards. However, Armia didn’t think the victory came easily. In the group stage, the Lions had lost to Slovakia 1-4.

– We learned from the first game and were more prepared today. In the end, we managed to grind our game, and we knew that the bounces would come at some point. In the third period, we took a bit of a lead, but it certainly didn’t come easily.

While Armia scored the most points for the Lions, the scoring leader was Sebastian Aho, who had 4+2 points in the tournament. Aho admitted that he had trouble sleeping after the semifinal disappointment. However, in the end, his mind cleared.

– It was incredibly nice to play hockey in this tournament and with these guys. I am really happy with how we played and won a medal, Aho said.

Throughout the tournament, players from many different countries have praised the team spirit and enjoyed how amazing it has been to play in the Olympics. We asked Aho about it.

– I thought during the season that the feeling of the Olympics… I got chills thinking about playing in the Olympics in a Finnish jersey, Aho started.

– When I got here and saw incredibly good guys… Really good team spirit. It was fun. I’ve dreamed of this for a long time, to get to play. Basically, one or two have already passed by in my career without NHL involvement. It was an insane honor.

Jaakko Perttilä
X: @JaakkoPerttila