QUEBEC - The first ever IIHF World Hockey Championship to be played in Canada ended in silver for the host country after a heartbreaking 5-4 loss to Russia on Sunday in the gold-medal game.

Ilya Kovalchuk's power-play goal at 2:42 of overtime gave the Russians their first gold medal at the event since 1993.

The result left disappointed a partisan crowd of 13,338 at Le Colisee Pepsi that hoped to watch Canada become the first home nation to win the championship since the Soviet Union in 1986.

"Right now we are the champions of the world and it feels so great," said Russian winger Alex Ovechkin. "It's really special to win here because this is hockey and it's a hockey-mad country.

"It just feels wonderful. It feels so great."

It looked good for the Canadians through 40 minutes, when they built a 4-2 lead on a pair of goals from defenceman Brent Burns plus singles