Sunday was the final day of the 2026 IIHF World Championship, with two Calgary Flames defencemen in action. In the bronze medal game, Team Canada took on Team Norway. The second game saw Määttä and Team Finland take on Team Switzerland, the hosts of the tournament.

Let’s take a look at what went on in these two games.

Team Finland vs Team Switzerland

The winner of Group A was decided by a match-up between these two teams on the final day of the preliminary round. In the end, Team Switzerland won that game 4-2 to go a perfect 7-0-0-0, followed by victories over Team Sweden and Team Norway.

On the other hand, Team Finland finished with the third best record in the tournament, and had to face two good teams in Team Czechia and Team Canada. Of course, they won both those games, setting up a rematch between the two teams for the gold medal.

Neither team scored after 60 minutes, setting up a winner-take-all three-on-three overtime. It took another 10 minutes and 42 seconds, but Konsta Helenius used his speed to get around the Swiss defender, and ripped it past their netminder for the goal.

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KONSTA HELENIUS THE GOLDEN GOAL FOR FINLAND! 🇫🇮 #MensWorlds

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9:09 PM · May 31, 2026

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This is Team Finland’s fifth gold medal at the World Championships, the first time they’ve won it since 2022. Their three titles since 2019 are the most for any national team, surpassing Team Canada’s two.

As for Team Switzerland, this is the third consecutive season that they’ve finished as the silver medallists. In 2025, they fell to Team USA, also by a score of 1-0 in overtime. The year before that, they fell 2-0 to the Czechs. This was their fourth silver medal since 2018, brutal.

Määttä played about 20 and a half minutes of ice time in this game, including 1:40 in overtime. He fired two shots on goal and was an even 0 in the plus/minus department.

Team Canada vs Team Norway

Sadly, Zach Whitecloud and Team Canada were unable to win the bronze medal game. About seven minutes into the game, Emilio Pettersen opened the scoring for Team Norway. Then with just over seven to play in the second period, Stian Solberg’s shot from the point deflected off Whitecloud and into the back of the net.

Down 2-0 with less than a minute and a half to play, Robert Thomas cut the Norwegian lead in half with just 76 seconds to play. Then with just eight seconds left, Thomas scored a second goal to send the game to overtime.

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ROBERT THOMAS TIES THE GAME WITH SEVEN SECONDS TO GO SENDING THIS GAME TO OVERTIME 🫨 #MensWorlds

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3:52 PM · May 31, 2026

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Unlike Team Finland’s game, there was no intermission between the third period and overtime. It also didn’t take nearly as long to find the game-winning goal (the bronzen goal?), as Noah Steen beat Jet Greaves clean to give Team Norway their first ever medal at the World Championship.

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NORWAY WINS THE BRONZE MEDAL OVER CANADA! 🚨🇳🇴 NOAH STEEN IS THE OVERTIME HERO! #MensWorlds

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4:01 PM · May 31, 2026

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As disappointing as this game and tournament was for Team Canada, who are still hunting for their first medal since 2023, what a Cinderella run it was for Team Norway. Just two years ago, the country saw their first two players ever drafted in the first round, Michael Brandsegg-Nygård by the Detroit Red Wings and Solberg of the Anaheim Ducks. Both players got a point on Team Norway’s second goal.

Unfortunately, that shot was going wide before it deflected off Whitecloud. The Flames defenceman played just over 15 minutes, finishing with one shot and a minus-1, as he returns to North America empty handed.

Other notes…

On top of winning the gold, Määttä had a strong tournament, picking up two assists in 10 games, finishing with four penalty minutes and plus-5. It’s the first time he’s ever won gold representing Team Finland, having picked up Olympic bronze medals in 2014 and 2026, as well as a World Championship silver medal in 2021.

Whitecloud had a pretty rough tournament, picking up just one assist over Team Canada’s six games. On top of that, he sat in the box for eight minutes, and was a team-worst minus-4. He helped the Canadians win the silver medal at the 2022 Worlds.

Team USA was bounced in the quarter-finals, falling 4-0 to Team Canada. That was no fault of Devin Cooley, who finished the tournament with a .930 save percentage and 1.76 goals against average in the six games he played. Not too shabby for a player wearing the red, white, and blue for the first time in his career.

The same can’t be said for Team USA’s Matt Coronato, who finished with just a goal and three points in eight games, finishing with a minus-6. Only one other player, Wyatt Kaiser, finished with a worse plus/minus.

As for Martin Pospíšil’s Team Slovakia, they lost to Team Sweden on their final day of the preliminary, missing out on the playoff rounds.Pospíšil had a solid tournament, scoring a goal and four points in seven games, finishing as a minus-1.

Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for FlamesNation, Oilersnation, and Blue Jays Nation. She can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.

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