Canada rolling at the World Juniors
Pat Quinn doesn’t know what to expect from his team yet.
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The coach of the Canadian World Junior Team has already watched his group play two near-perfect games but both wins came against inferior competition and have done little to test the powerful Canadian squad.
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After an 8-1 win over the Czech Republic in their tournament opener on Friday, Canada cruised to a 15-0 whitewash of Kazakhstan on Sunday.
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Quinn said that despite the one-sided wins, he is concerned that his squad hasn’t been pushed yet.
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“You worry about them because you come in with a plan,” Quinn said. “Part of the plan is that you are working with young people that still have lots to learn about the intangible side or the mental side of this game. Those are the things they need to match the skills that they have. Those are the areas as a coach that you are trying to work on in your drills and those things. Every talk you have with them is geared towards that mental side.”
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Canada (2-0) scored four times in the first period and added five more in the second period against Kazakhstan (0-2). They capped the route with six more goals in the third and have outscored their competition 23-1 in six periods of hockey.
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Jamie Benn of the Kelowna Rockets led the way offensively for Canada with three goals and two assists while Cody Hodgson of the Brampton Battalion scored two goals and added four assists.
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John Tavares of the Oshawa Generals and P.K. Subban of the Belleville Bulls also scored twice while Chris Di Domenico of the Saint John Sea Dogs, Jordan Eberle of the Regina Pats, Tyler Myers of the Rockets, Stefan Della Rovere of the Barrie Colts, Evander Kane of the Vancouver Giants and Tyler Ennis of the Medicine Hat Tigers added single goals.
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Benn admitted after the game that it was difficult for the Canadians to maintain their focus on the game plan.
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“It’s just one of those games where you can’t get too excited,” Benn said. “There is a little bit of that but we talked about it and we’ve got to stay sharp for the full 60 (minutes) and we did that. I think you’ve just got to play hard until the buzzer and we did that. It’s hard to not let the bad habits creep up in a game like that but we did.”
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Captain Thomas Hickey of the Seattle Thunderbirds said that the players are determined to stay focused on their ultimate objective, which is to win a fifth straight gold medal.
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“It’s a bit of a challenge to stay on task and not develop bad habits,” Hickey said. “We were really stressing that – especially after the first period when we had a feeling that things could get out of hand. We were just making sure we were playing for the team and not get too cute.”
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Hickey is one of four returning players from the team that won the gold medal in the Czech Republic last year. That team beat the Czech Republic and Slovakia in their first two games before losing to Sweden. They finished the preliminary round with a win over Denmark. They needed a 4-2 win over Finland to advance to the semi-finals and beat the U.S.A. 4-1 to earn a trip to the gold medal game.
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Canada finished the tournament with a 3-2 win over Sweden to win its fourth straight gold medal. To win another one, Hickey said that the Canadians will have to stick to their game plan every minute of the tournament.
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“We want to build ourselves up all the way to the medal rounds,” Hickey said. “From the first game against the Czech Republic we want to get better on all parts of our game. We were working on our forecheck in practice a lot and wanted to bring that into tonight’s game. It’s a process.”
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Canada meets Germany on Monday (7:30 p.m. on TSN and RDS) before wrapping up the preliminary segment of the tournament against the U.S.A. on New Year’s Eve.
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“Obviously we have to be at the top of our game when we are playing (the U.S.),” Hickey said. “There are still some things we need to improve on so the Germans are going to be a good test for us to keep going. When we play the Americans, we want a chance to win the pool so we have to win all of our games before that.”
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World Junior Notebook: The Canadian victory on Sunday was its largest shutout win in the history of the tournament…With his goal against the Czech Republic on Friday, Ryan Ellis of the Windsor Spitfires became the first 17-year-old defenceman to score for Canada at the World Juniors since Wade Redden did it in 1995.
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Photo: Aaron Bell/CHL