USA Pucks Up Canada's Win Streak in World Juniors
This event's one of those annual holiday treats that flies under many radars south of the 49th parallel.
Frankly, it used to do that everywhere until the Great White North turned up the hype.
After all, it's hockey.
And it's a chace for Canada to remind everyone who invented this game, dammit.
Then again, absolutely nothing arises out of nowhere, but what do facts have to do with anything anymore, anyway?
Of course, there's an American take on it, too, and dude's definitely got an ax to grind.
Literally:
OK. Can't do that in the Juniors.
But after losing their last five matches to the Great White Northerners, the Team USA junior team could do this in Toronto on New Year's Eve:
Not seen in that clip were the 12 minutes in penalties the Americans had to kill.
And five of them came in the second period, when Yank captain Luke Kunin quite ably demonstrated that cheap stuff isn't exactly monopolized by the Canadians:
|
Dude got tossed along with receiving a five-minute major. Philippe Myers sustained a concussion and will miss the rest of the tournament.
Bummer. Because now the real part of the program gets underway. Bracket play:
Canada surely has its sights set on another shot at Team USA, but the route to a rematch is laden with minefields:
- Denmark is a surprise contestant, upsetting Finland, but will be hard-pressed against Russia, who seek revenge against the Americans for a tense 3-2 loss in the preliminaries;
- Sweden hasn't lost in pool play since 2011, and as usual, they're the real deal.
Frankly, Canada was right to hype the World Juniors into a destination event. These dudes are tomorrow's pros and play like it today.
And for all of them, that means being talented enough to do something about the chips on their respective shoulders.