Twelve years after won their last golden medal at the Olympics, one of Sweden's best ever generations wants to say goodbye with a 1994 repeat

The current Swedish team is considered one of the best ever generations ice hockey in Sweden has ever been given.

The names of Peter Forsberg, Daniel Alfredsson, Nicklas Lidstr etc. are well known worldwide.

With the 2006 winter Olympics most likely being their last ever Olympic appearance they wanted to make sure it would not go by unnoticed.

Three players of the current team know what it's like to win a gold medal, the first and only Olympic gold for Tre Kronor, at the Winter Olympics and will surely bring this experience into the locker room. Those three are defenseman Kenny Jsson and forwards Jgen Jsson and Peter Forsberg. The latter scored a spectacular shootout goal against Canada in the final which ended up in the winner. The goal that wrote ice hockey history even made it on a stam, honoured forever.

Facing Finland will have the Swedish media raving in the build up to the game. Several newspapers have already come out with teasing headlines that all came down to that it was already a sure thing who would come out as a winner: Sverige.

Mats Sundin is playing down this Finland rivalry. "To be honest," captain Mats Sundin said, "we've all played them so many times in our careers, it's not like it will be something different. What's nice is to be playing in a gold-medal game at the Olympics. What we know about Finland is that it's always a tough game when we play them."

Winger Daniel Alfredsson is surprised to see both Sweden and Finland made it all the way to the final. "I think if you bet ten dollars on a Finland-Sweden finals before the Olympics began," Daniel Alfredsson suggested, "you wouldn't have had much company. I said before we started that there are six or seven teams that could win gold, and we're happy to be where we are."

With the tournament down to just two teams, Alfredsson realises it is now a case of all or nothing.

"A good start is extremely important for us," he explained. "We have to be smart. We can't turn the puck over, and we have to stay patient. I think the Russians got a little frustrated the other day. We can't do that. They [the Finns] don't give up a lot of scoring chances. Also, we have to stay out of the penalty box because they have a great power play. So do we, though. I think whoever wins the specialty teams will have the best chance for gold."

But the Finns won't likely be easy scalps. The team has just given up five goals in seven games and the goaltending tandem of Norrena, who plays in Sweden, and Niittymi has already posted five shutouts so far.

"I'll be very happy if we win 1-0, so we only have to score once," coach Bengt Ake Gustafsson said without so much as a friendly grin. "We've been able to score goals here, so I'm not worried." What about shutting down a potent counter attack like the Finns? "We have pretty good defence tactics, too," Gustafsson continued in defence of his strategy.

Back home in Sweden they wouldn't mind the final score as long as Sweden is on the positive end of it. Who knows the game will be as tight as it has been in the past and it comes down to a penalty shootout.

In an era where Posten suffers from the declining interest in regular 'snail mail', Peter Forsberg can give the traditional Swedish postal company a big boost if he can re-write history. Another goal-stamp of 'Foppa' will surely become a collector's item.

Forsberg is a beast! One of my favorite players by far.