From time to time, TheIHLC.com will feature detailed recaps and boxscores of some of the most legendary games in international hockey history, considered to be “IHLC Classics.” Today, to celebrate National Day (Sveriges nationaldag) in Sweden, we focus on Sweden’s second and most recent Olympic Gold Medal, won from rivals Finland at the 2006 Turin Games.

🇸🇪 Sweden 3-2 Finland 🇫🇮
Olympic Gold Medal Game
Palasport Olimpico, Turin 🇮🇹
Sunday, 26 February 2006

The hockey world changed most dramatically and recently in the 1990s. First, the Soviet Union crumbled, after which Czechoslovakia split in two, and then NHLers started to compete at the Olympics. The result produced an astounding parity among the top teams. Consider that the “Canadian era” lasted from 1920 to 1961 and the “Soviet era” from 1962 to 1990.

That is, these countries dominated those periods of time in a way that is unimaginable today.
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