2000 IIHF World Championship Final

The 2000 IIHF World Championship Final was a ice hockey match that took place on 14 May 2000 at the The Ice Palace Arena in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to determine the winner of the 2000 IIHF World Championship. The Czech Republic defeated Slovakia 5–3 to win its second championship.

Background
The game marked the first time the two former member-nations of Czechoslovakia would meet each other Final, after becoming independent in 1994, just six years before. It also was the first time independent Slovakia would reach the finals of the IIHF World Championships, jumping up from a previous best placement of 7th (in 1999, and 1998). For independent Czech Republic it was the second ever finals participation after their gold-medal win in 1996.

Venue
The The Ice Palace Arena in Saint Petersburg was determined to host the final of the championship. Previously at the tournament, the venue hosted the both semi-finals, and the Bronze medal match. In the final, the attendance was 12,350, 100.4% of capacity.

Summary
Michal Sýkora stared the scoring for the Czech Republic at 6 minutes into the game, assisted by Martin Procházka, and Vaclav Varaďa. Just over 3 minutes later Tomáš Vlasák buried a centering pass by Petr Buzek. Procházka added another for the Czech's at 12:25 of the first, assisted by Vlasák and Pavel Patera.

7:43 into the second period, Martin Štrbák scored to put the Slovak's on the board, assisted by Radoslav Suchý. The Czechs suffered some penalty problems getting 10 minor penalties, and 5 in the second period alone, however due to the brilliant play of their goaltender, Roman Cechmanek, the Czech Republic held their lead.

Jan Tomajko scored at 3:45 into the final period to put the Czech's up 4-1, and this would end up as the game winning goal. Miroslav Hlinka, and Miroslav Šatan both scored late goals for Slovakia to make the game 4-3, and Šatan's goal would end up giving him he tournament scoring title, over Jiri Dopita. Robert Reichel's goal with just over 1 minute left in the game ended any hopes of a Slovak comeback, and secured the Czech Republic's third gold medal at the IIHF World Championships, and in the span of just 5 years.