Canada begin quest for third straight U18 gold medal

Canada will begin its quest for a third straight gold medal at the U18 World Championships later today in Slovakia.

It’s been a dominant two-year run for Canada at the tournament – they stunned the USA in the 2024 final as they overcame a 3-1 deficit to win 6-4 while in 2025 they crushed Sweden 7-0.

Now, they look to become the first country since the USA won four straight titles between 2009-12 to win three consecutive gold medals.

The roster that will start the tournament is not short of talent – Maddox Dagenais (Quebec), Beckett Hamilton (Red Deer), Jaxon Jacobson (Brandon), Alexis Joseph (Saint John), Jean-Cristoph Lemieux (Sudbury), Thomas Rousseau (Sherbrooke), Thomas Vandenberg (Ottawa) and Dima Zhilkin (Saginaw) all surpassed 20 goals during the 2025-26 regular season. On the blue line, Ryan Lin (Vancouver) and Kohyn Eshkawkogan (Ottawa) each passed the 50-point plateau while the three goaltenders – Gavin Betts (Kingston), Carter Esler (Spokane Chiefs) and Patrick Déniger (Quebec) – combined to win 63 games.

Furthermore, Lin, Alessandro Di Ioiro (Sarnia) and CHL alumnus Keaton Verhoeff (Victoria) return from the 2025 gold medal winning team while 11 players that won bronze at the 2025 Hlinka Gretzky Cup (Betts, Chartrand, Di Iorio, Esler, Lawrence, Lemieux, Lin, Preston, Rousseau, Verhoeff, Zhilkin) are included.

As per usual, the tournament presents the opportunity for 2026 NHL Draft prospects to shine before June with Canada’s roster having six players who were recently ranked among the Top 32 North American skaters in NHL Central Scouting’s final rankings in Verhoeff (no. 4), Dagenais (no. 15), Lin (no. 16), Benjamin MacBeath (no .22), Ryder Cali (no. 25) and Mathis Preston (no. 32).

Their preparations couldn’t have gone better – Canada beat Sweden 5-2 on April 17 and followed that up with a 6-2 decision over Czechia two days later. On Wednesday, Verhoeff was named captain while Di Iorio and Zhilkin will each wear an ‘A’.

Canada open their tournament Wednesday against Slovakia and will also face Latvia (April 23), Norway (April 25) and Finland (April 27) in the round-robin. The gold medal game is set for May 2.

The final is set for May 2 at the Pavol Demitra Ice Hockey Stadium in Slovakia. TSN and RDS will broadcast all Canada preliminary-round games, as well as the quarterfinals, semi-finals, and medal games.