2006 Winter Olympics

Before 3-0 defeat, Swedish coach advocates losing

By wire services
Published February 22, 2006

International hockey's governing board closely monitored Sweden's 3-0 loss to Slovakia on Tuesday after Swedish coach Bengt-Ake Gustafsson suggested his team might be better off losing.

The loss meant Sweden will play Switzerland instead of Canada or the Czech Republic in today's men's quarterfinals. Though Switzerland finished ahead of Canada and the Czechs in preliminary play, it is considered a much weaker opponent.

Kalervo Kummola, chief of the Finnish Hockey Association, was sent by the International Ice Hockey Federation to watch the game. The IIHF routinely designates game supervisors to monitor games, but normally doesn't identify the person it sends.

After the first period, Kummola said he "didn't see anything special" and was happy Sweden was using its personnel as normal.

"It is very important that you play hard because people do not understand if you lose on purpose," Kummola said.

The Swedes insisted they played hard.

"We had a bad game. We had a terrible game," said captain Mats Sun din. "If we want to have a chance to go to the semifinals, we have to be better than we were tonight. We're professional athletes and we want to give the best. There's been no talk about anything else in our dressing room."

"We tried hard today, there's no question," Daniel Alfredsson said.

The controversy began when Gustafsson told Swedish TV on Monday he was debating how to approach the game against Slovakia.

"We are discussing extensively within our group what is good and what is not good. It is a tricky situation and we are facing difficult preconditions how to deal with this situation," Gustafsson said. "Shall we try to select our opponent or shall we do what it takes to win and then take the opponent that comes our way?"

IIHF president Rene Fasel said through spokesman Szymon Szemberg he felt "concern, surprise and disappointment" with the remarks and that they were out of place.

AMERICANS FAIL TO ADVANCE: Emily Cook and Jana Lindsey, the only Americans entered, failed to qualify for tonight's finals in the freestyle aerials.

MORE PARAPHERNALIA FOUND: A disgraced Austrian ski coach left behind syringes in the home he rented for the Olympics, and more details were revealed about what was seized in a weekend raid on the living quarters of athletes and staff - including unlabeled drugs and a blood transfusion machine.

An Italian prosecutor inspected the private home in the mountain hamlet of Pragelato on Monday night, where banned coach Walter Mayer had been staying before he bolted the Olympics after the raids and resurfaced in Austria. Officials said that syringes were found during the search.

[Last modified February 22, 2006, 01:04:18]