WINTER OLYMPICS : Hockey : Uninspired Finns Lose to Czechs; Canada Routs West Germany, 8-1

Finland waited 36 years for its first Olympic hockey medal. It may have to wait four more for a chance at its first gold.

Hours after Canada’s 8-1 victory over West Germany on Friday guaranteed at least a bronze medal for the Finns, they played poorly and lost to Czechoslovakia, 5-2.

Had Finland won, it would have set up a gold-medal showdown Sunday night with the Soviet Union. With the Finnish loss, however, a victory Friday night over Sweden would have given the Soviets the gold.

A Swedish victory or tie Friday night would have set up a three-way scramble with only Sunday’s Finland-Soviet and Sweden-Czechoslovakia games remaining.

The Canadians and West Germans were also still alive for a medal heading into Friday night’s game.

A Soviet victory would have kept Canada and West Germany in the bronze-medal picture. A Soviet-Sweden tie would have eliminated West Germany but not Canada. If Sweden won, both teams were eliminated.

Canada meets Czechoslovakia in today’s only game.

Considering what was at stake, Finland looked unbelievably flat against the Czechoslovaks, the 1984 silver medalists who had been eliminated from medal consideration Wednesday.

The Czechs, who had been called quitters by their coaches, played with great enthusiasm and controlled the game from start to finish.

Czechoslovakia scored in the first minute of all four of its power plays, with future Minnesota North Star Dusan Pasek getting a goal and three assists and Igor Liba adding two goals and an assist.

Dominik Hasek, whose problems during the Olympics had observers wondering why he was considered one of the world’s top goalies, was superb.

He made 24 saves. And, with the score 3-1, his stop of a point-blank Reijo Mikkolainen shot led directly to Vladimir Ruzicka’s breakaway goal with 13:14 to play.

That sealed Czechoslovakia’s victory, turning a possible one-goal game into a three-goal blowout.

Jarmo Myllys, who entered the game with a 1.20 goals-against average and an astonishing .953 saves percentage, couldn’t be blamed for the Czechoslovak goals.

For most of the game, his teammates stood idly by and watched the Czechs pepper him with short-range shots.

Like Czechoslovakia, Canada enjoyed an Olympic coming-out party Friday.

After 199 minutes, 34 seconds of medal-round play dating to the 1984 Games, the Canadians finally scored.

But even after Serge Boisvert’s goal with 26 seconds left in the first period, Canada was still looking like the struggling unit that had disappointed its hometown fans. West Germany outshot the Canadians 17-7 in the first.

“(Goalie) Andy Moog kept us in the game,” Canada assistant coach Guy Charron said. “The players were upset with the first period. After that, the players just made up their minds to play good hockey.”

For the first time in Canada’s Olympics, Canada’s team finally took command of a hockey game.

After West Germany’s Dieter Hegen tied the game, Canada reeled off four goals in less than five minutes. The last three, by Ken Yaremchuk, Marc Habscheid and Ken Berry, were scored in a 1:34 span; Habscheid’s and Berry’s within 16 seconds.

“We made some individual mistakes and then it was 4-1,” West Germany Coach Xaver Unsinn said. “When we got down 3-1, we were not able to change the (momentum).”

At the urging of its scoring-starved fans, Canada piled it on in the third period, getting three goals against Karl Friesen who had taken over for starting goalie Josef Schlickenrieder after the second-period barrage.