The win puts Russia in the semi-finals and sends the Swiss, bronze medal winners a year ago, to the 5th-place game.

The win continues the amazing turnaround of a Russian team that lost all five games it played last year and had a goals ratio of 8:35.

"We have a lot of drive and motivation with the Olympics coming to Russia," said Yekaterina Pashkevich, at 40 years of age the grand dame of the Women's Worlds. "The goals are set pretty high for our team and our expectations are high. We took a new approach this year. We got new coaches, made plans for each player to elevate their skills. It was a lot of hard work for this year, but it’s paying off."

"We're very disappointed," said Phoebe Stanz, the best player on the ice tonight. "I felt we were confident. We could have won this game. We should have won this game."

The first period was dominated by the Russians in terms of puck possession and territorial play, but the only goal of the opening 20 minutes came on a bad goal allowed by the usually impervious Florence Schelling. Tatyana Burina had the puck in the corner and simply snapped a shot into the crease. The puck hit Schelling’s left skate and dribbled over the line.

The Swiss, who have had terrible troubles scoring, had their best pressure of the entire tournament late in the period. For two minutes they moved the puck around with confidence, created several good scoring chances, and looked to be every bit the equal of the Russians.