World Cup Roundup: Day 8

TORONTO -- Team Europe has gone from experiment to World Cup of Hockey 2016 finalist.
Tomas Tatar scored 3:43 into overtime to give Team Europe a 3-2 win against Team Sweden in their World Cup semifinal Sunday at Air Canada Centre.
The team made up of European players not from Sweden, Finland, Russia and the Czech Republic, will play Team Canada, which defeated Team Russia 5-3 in the other semifinal Saturday, in the best-of-3 World Cup final. Game 1 is Tuesday (8 p.m. ET; ESPN, CBC, TVA Sports).
Team Canada defeated Team Europe 4-1 in their preliminary-round finale on Wednesday.

Here's the recap of the game Sunday.

Too deep, too talented

This ride Team Europe is on is a great story, but if Team Canada plays to its capability, it's hard to envision it not winning the World Cup.
"You're competing against the opposition, but you're trying to get the most you possibly can out of yourself," Team Canada coach Mike Babcock said. "To me, being process-orientated anyway, you're going to do that. In saying that, we'll dial in very closely on the nuances of their team and how they do things and get our team prepared the best we possibly can. But in the end, it's going to be about us."
Read the story on Team Canada here

The Great One awaits final

Hockey Hall of Fame forward Wayne Gretzky believes Team Europe belongs in the World Cup final and is looking forward to seeing how it fares against Team Canada when the best-of-3 series gets underway Tuesday.
"I think people wanted to see the USA or Russia, but this is something new," Gretzky said. "It's like parenting; my parents parented differently than I do. You have to go with the times and go with the flow and Team Europe deserves to be there.
"Coach] Ralph Krueger has done a remarkable job with his team, I really like what they are doing. I look forward to it being a big series."
[Read the Gretzky story here.