France moves up

18 Dec 2021Henrik Lundqvist»

France promote to the second level of the World Juniors programme after winning the decisive game against Slovenia.

The World U20 Championship Division 1B was decided on the last day. France needed all 3 points against Slovenia or the Slovenians would win the tournament. Slovenia were favourites after a better tournament record and they also won the pre-tournament game between the teams 9 days ago with the score of 7-4.

France got off to a great start when Rouen forward Jordan Hervé scored two early goals in the 6th and 9th minute. Jure Povše scored for Slovenia at 22:04 after an indivisual French mistake. When Miha Beričič tied the game at 43:46 Slovenia was on top of the standings again. The somewhat unexpected hero for France was Maxime Corvez who scored his first point of the tournament when he made it 3-2 with 6:36 to go. Slovenia pulled Luka Kolin from the net but failed to tie it.

Thomas Simonsen had scored goals in all 4 games until the final day but was scoreless for the first time today. Instead he assisted two of the French goals and finished on top of the point scorer list with 7+8 points in 5 games, one point ahead of Ukraine's Danylo Korzhiletsky.

Poland was relegated to division 2A after only winning one point during the tournament in the tough overtime loss to the host Estonia on day 4.