"Oh, Canada IV"
Friday, January 06, 2006
Posted by Kerrzy
When the Canadian national anthem rang out at Vancouver’s GM Place on the evening of January 5th, 2006, Brent Sutter had just picked up his twelfth straight win as the head coach of Team Canada, Justin Pogge had just secured his tournament-record 3rd shutout, though not without controversy, and – oh yeah, Team Canada retained the World Junior Hockey Championship Gold with a stunning 5-0 victory over Evgeni Malkin and Team Russia.
It was exactly 366 days ago that Canada last reached the finals of the World Juniors, and 366 days ago that they stomped all over the Russians as I used up a phone card listening to the game through my parents from a payphone across the road from the hostel I was living at in Sydney, Australia.
Who would have guessed after such a triumphant tournament, that 366 days later, with only one returning player from the 2005 lineup, veteran defenseman Cam Barker, that we would be celebrating another big win over Russia in another Gold medal game?
Nevertheless, when the Canadian flag began it’s final ascent to the rafters as “Oh, Canada†blared from the speakers at GM Place and the excited voices of thousands joined in an out-of-tune blend of the English and French versions of our nations anthem, it seemed perfect.
With the win, Coach Sutter becomes the first ever Canadian coach to secure back-to-back Gold medals at the tournament, and what a way to do it.
As the pre-tournament underdogs, sitting in the shadow of Group A favorites Team USA and Group B favorites Team Russia, none but the Canadian fans were giving them much of a chance before things got rolling.
Watching Phil Kessel, Chris Bourque, Robbie Schremp and the rest of them being completely shutdown, despite their best efforts, by the stellar Canadian blue line pairings of Mark Staal, Ryan Parent, Cam Barker and Kris Russell was a thing of beauty. In the end, the old adage “the best offense is a good defense†rang all too true for the Red and White.
Earlier on today the over-hyped Americans were defeated by the Finns to capture fourth place for the second year in a row and, just as they had done in the two games prior, once the game seemed to be out of reach Team USA became a goon show, headhunting whoever happened to be on the ice.
Against Canada it was a vicious elbow by Jack Johnson (although Bob Mackenzie seems to believe that Downie “embellished†his fall…); against Russia it was a crosscheck to the head by Robbie Schremp or dirty hits behind the play with hardly any time on the clock; and against Finland today it was no different as Peter Mueller was given two minutes for a check to the head and a ten minute misconduct with under four minutes to play for a dirty open-ice hit at center ice.
All in all it was a fantastic tournament, living up to, and in some ways even exceeding the high expectations left by last years crop of players, and Gongshow Hockey would like to congratulate the players, volunteers and organizers that made it all happen.
Thanks for the memories boys.
Moral of the Story: It’s a great day to be Canadian!