Over the weekend, Russia finished off an amazing undefeated run to win the IIHF World Championship. Led by NHL stars Alexander Ovechkin, Pavel Datsyuk and Evgeni Malkin, the Russians were hardly ever tested in the tournament. By winning their first gold since 2009 and defeating Slovakia 6-2 in the final game, Russia has once again established itself as a world hockey powerhouse. However, they could use some improvement when it comes to postgame celebration.
As you can see from the video above, Russian goalie Semyon Varlamov took a tumble as he was raising the championship trophy in triumph on Sunday afternoon. Fortunately for Varlamov and his teammates, he was able to land safely on his can and avoid an Alabama-style trophy disaster right in the middle of the ice. If the trophy were as big as the Stanley Cup, I can see the weight of it bringing a player to the ice. With this trophy being about 1/8 the size and Varlamov playing a position that requires tremendous balance, I’m not exactly sure what happened here. We’ll just call it the exhaustion of victory.
