Canada claims World Junior gold again
It was a golden party wrapped up in a red and white bow when Team Canada won its fifth straight World Junior gold medal in the nation’s capital on Monday.
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Canada tied its own record of five straight wins set from 1993-1997 and seconds after captain Thomas Hickey of the Seattle Thunderbirds hoisted the trophy, chants of “we want six” started coming from the sold out crowd of more than 20,000 at ScotiaBank Place. Next year, Canada will get that chance when the tournament heads out west to Saskatoon and Regina, SK.
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P.K. Subban of the Belleville Bulls got the party started early on Monday when he scored a powerplay marker 38 seconds into the game.
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Angelo Esposito of the Montreal Juniors scored early in the second period and Cody Hodgson of the Brampton Battalion put the game out of reach with a marker 33 seconds into the third. Jordan Eberle of the Regina Pats and Hodgson sealed the win with empty net markers in the final two minutes.
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“I think it was our best game tonight,” said Canadian coach Pat Quinn. “We started better tonight with respect to control of their game. We got the early powerplay and scoring right away helped relieve that pressure.”
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John Tavares of the Oshawa Generals picked up an assist on Esposito’s goal and was named MVP of the tournament after leading all goal scorers with eight.
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“Obviously my role was a lot bigger this year so I wanted to take on some leadership and be counted on out there,” Tavares said. “My focus was on staying loose and having fun with the experience. It’s great that we won the gold for everyone in Canada.”
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Hodgson led the tournament in scoring and joined Tavares and Subban on the tournament all-star team. Erie Otters’ goalie Jaroslav Janus of Slovakia was also named to the all-star team.
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Dustin Tokarski of the Spokane Chiefs played his best game in the Canadian net, turning aside all but one of 40 Swedish shots. Joakim Andersson tallied midway through the third period.
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“Tokarski was very good tonight and I was happy to see that because there was some question in some of the other games,” Quinn said. “I was happy to see that.”
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Canada came into the game knowing that they would need their best effort of the tournament to beat the Swedish team in the gold medal for a second straight year. The Canadians took control of the game early and controlled the play throughout the first two periods. The Swedes started to gain some momentum with powerplays late in the middle frame and early in the third but the Canadian defenders did a good job of clearing traffic in front of Tokarski.
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“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” Hickey said. “It represents all the work that every single guy did. That hard work is shown by our gold medal.”
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As many as nine players from this year’s team are eligible to return next year in Saskatchewan.
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World Junior notebook – The gold medal game drew a World Junior record crowd of 20,380 people and pushed the tournament attendance to a new record of 453,296 in 31 games…Saskatoon Blades’ Governor Jack Brodsky of the Saskatoon Blades was on hand on Monday discussing plans for the 2010 World Junior Championships that will be played in Saskatoon and Regina next Christmas… Earlier in the day, Russia beat Slovakia 5-2 in the bronze medal game.