A lot of hockey fans were furious this past weekend after Finland’s women’s hockey team was robbed of their first Women’s World Championship gold medal.

The Finnish team scored a goal in overtime and were in full celebration mode, but the officials ended up going upstairs to review the play and overturned the call. What’s even crazier was that they called a penalty on USA’s goalie but still disallowed the goal without any American players touching the puck.
 

The Finnish team ended up protesting the game, but the IIHF released a statement as to why those specific calls were made in the gold medal game. 
 

Two IIHF Playing Rules were considered in this instance:
 
-According to IIHF Playing Rule 186 v. Goaltender and Goal/Goal Crease Disallowed: An attacking skater who makes contact other than incidental with a goaltender who is out of his goal crease during game action will be assessed a minor penalty for interference. If a goal is scored at this time, it will not count.
 
-According to IIHF Playing Rule 183 ii. Protection of a Goaltender: Incidental contact is allowed when the goaltender is in the act of playing the puck outside his goal crease, provided the attacking skater makes a reasonable effort to minimize or avoid such contact.
 
Taking these two rules into consideration, the IIHF Video Goal Judge Operations determined that the goal must be disallowed.

While the Finnish team did not receive their first gold medal, they ended up getting paid like they won gold. According to the Finnish Ice Hockey Association’s website (with some help from Google Translate), the players will receive a € 7,000 (roughly $10,500 CAD) reward, which is what they would have earned if they had won gold, instead of a € 5,000 reward, which is the amount they were supposed to get for a silver.
 

“We respect the outcome of the World Championships, knowing that the Women's Lions were really close to the historic World Cup in World Cup races. We want to reward players for this brilliant performance. I believe that in the hearts of many Finns, the Women's Lions won the World Championship, even though the official Scoreboard is another one,” Harri Nummela , Chairman of the Ice Hockey Association, said in a statement.

It’s nice to see the program step up and reward the team for their efforts, because a lot of people would agree that they were robbed of their first gold medal in tournament history.

(H/T leijonat)