World Juniors: Late Goal Deflects Gold toward Canada

It was the sorta game they'll be talking about for years north of the 49th.

That's just what Canadians do with instant classics at any level, and this is now one of them.

Conversely, hockey fans in Sweden will likely shrug and put the 2018 World Junior Championship title game behind them as yet another near miss for a gold medal and get on with their winter routines.

Except for the novelty of an outdoor game featuring the USA and Canada, attendance at this year's tournament has been surprisingly abysmal.

However, tonight, the city turned into Buffalo, Ontario.

And why wouldn't it?

Nothing unites the Great White North like a hockey championship, and at the World Juniors, those had become rather scarce lately. As in one title over the previous eight years.

After capturing five straight WJC golds -- 2005-2009 -- Canada sorta saw the world's other hockey powers catch up.

This actually made the event that they hyped into a major part of the sports annual calendar even more popular, but that's beside the point.

Then there's Sweden's outlook on the whole thing.

The Små Kronor -- as the juniors are known -- have an unbelievable 44-game winning streak in WJC pool play. Their last loss in the preliminaries was to the USA 11 years ago.

In that that span, dudes have won it all only once, in 2012.

Sure, they've picked up four silvers and one bronze, but anymore, those are merely lovely parting gifts.

This year's contingent may not have been their best team, but it sure as hell was one of its swiftest.

Sweden's killer in this title game, though, was 22 penalty minutes compared to Canada's 2.

Although the Små Kronor outshot the Canadians, 36-28, that time in the box woulda been better spent firing a few more pucks at the outstanding Carter Hart. Dude stood on his head, big time:

Awesome win. Tough loss.

Canada's Tyler Steenbergen created a memory for life with that well-executed deflection.

On the other side, Lias Andersson -- who's playing for Västra Frölunda in the Swedish League this season -- personnified Sweden's frustration by shrugging off anything that wasn't gold.

Well, at this level, you shouldn't play it if you don't mean it.