Second bad U20 tournament in a row and Finland been bad at the U18s as well for couple years now.
What you saw against Canada and Germany, in Finland we have word for it "virkamiesmieskiekko". This team was not a gold medal contender to begin with but they shouldn't be this bad, now Finland is struggling to reach Q-final stage. Unacceptable.
But maybe this is what we need, a complete disaster tournament. Because that's the only way to wake up the Finnish Ice Hockey Association. Otherwise it will be good ol' wash, rinse and repeat.
We are losing in skating, shooting, passing, 1 on 1 battles. Like Ismo Lehkonen said most of our players play in Liiga, in a men's league and we should we should win most of the 1 on 1 battles. Clearly Liiga is part of problem, the level of game in Liiga has regressed a lot. Too many teams and not enough good players, and not enough competition.
First and second problem is the Finnish Ice Hockey Association and player development, the Sauna Club is filled with incompetent and greedy people. The Finnish Ice Hockey Association should be filled with people like Mikko Saarni for example, whom has excellent takes on finnish hockey. Liiga and Mestis orgs should hire skill and skating coaches and the ice hockey associaton should provide some "assistance money" for it. They are swimming in money like Scrooge McDuck, player development in Finland is halting big time. Junior national team needs full time skills and skating coaches, they have the money for it.
Third problem is Liiga, the finnish ice hockey association should step in and break the Liiga cartel. Like i said too many teams and not enough good players, and not enough competition. No fear of relegation because Liiga stock costs too much for the Mestis teams, crappy teams can sell half of the team and play rest of the season with 3 lines with 2 of them filled with junior players. And it gets even worse, next year there is 16 teams in Liiga! FFS!!!
12 team league would be best, 1-6 advances to the playoffs, 7-10 play playoff qualifier series and two winning teams advances to the playoffs. Teams 11 and 12 play relegation round 1 first against each other, loser plays in relegation round 2 against the Mestis champion. And same league system to Mestis. More meaningful games, more competition, Liiga improves, Mestis improves and hell even a 3rd-tier league suomi-sarja improves as well. Common sense says then finnish hockey itself would improve.