Switzerland Wins in Final Group a Women's Hockey Round Robin Game of 2010 Vancouver Olympics

In the final Group A women's hockey round robin game of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics featured Switzerland and Slovakia. Both teams came into the game with two losses. Switzerland lost their first game to Sweden in a three goal shut out. They lost their second game by a wider margin, but they did at least get one goal in their one to ten loss to Canada. Slovakia on the other hand was shut out by Canada in their first game while allowing 18 goals and scored two goals in their two to six loss to Sweden. Thus they came in with a likely chance of either being the winner and ending up in third in Group A.

Slovakia scored the first goal of the game about seven minutes into the first period. Slovakia's evenhanded goal was the only goal of the first period. Switzerland did have fourteen shots in the first period, which was four more than Slovakia had, but they were unable to get any past Slovakia's goalie.

With three penalties against Slovakia in the first three minutes of the second period, Switzerland was on the power play for most of the first five minutes of the period, However, they were unable to take advantage of it, including some times when it was five on three.

In the second period Switzerland continued to get in more shots on goal than Slovakia. One of their shots finally went in with about five minutes left in the period and they tied the game at one. The second period ended with Switzerland out shooting Slovakia 16 to 10 and the game tied at one.

Slovakia regained their lead by scoring only nineteen seconds into the third period. Their second goal was also Culikova's second of the game. About halfway through the period Switzerland tied the game back up with Marty's second goal of the game. Less than a minute later they took their first lead of the game with a goal by Benz.

Switzerland scored their fourth goal with less than four minutes left in the game giving them the first multiple goal lead of the game. Their fourth goal was a shorthanded goal. They increased their lead with a minute and a half left in the period with their fifth goal scored by Marty, which completed her hat trick for the game.

The end score of five to two does not really reflect how close it was most of the game. Until the last five minutes of the final period neither team had a lead of more than one, but Switzerland finally got their shots going in for the final part of the third period allowing them to win by three.