2011-12 World Junior Championship Thread

[Built Ford Tough]

Opening game (Canada vs. Finland) starts in about 40 or so minutes.

 

So excited for perhaps my favourite sporting event of the year.

 

Should be a good, wide open tournament. I can see anyone of Sweden, Canada, Russian or the USA winning this year as it really is wide open.

[Phightins]

Bob McKenzie is saying that Smith-Pelly is probably out for the rest of the tournament. Sucks for Canada. And the Ducks.

[Built Ford Tough]

Yeah, that is going to be a huge blow to the Canadians.

 

Luckily for them, Huberdeau looked fantastic and didn't show any lingering effects from the broken foot that had kept him on the shelf for the last month and a half or so. With DSP out of the lineup, they are going to need Hub to continue to be a force offensively and guys like Connolly and Schwartz are going to really need to step up and provide the secondary scoring that the Huberdeau/Stone/Strome line needs.

[Built Ford Tough]

Finland with a nice 4-1 bounce back victory over the States after that 8-1 thrashing they received from Canada.

 

Sweden also just edged out Switzerland.

 

Canada looking like they are going to improve to 2-0 as they are up 3-0 on the Czechs and have completely controlled the play.

[Built Ford Tough]

Kind of disappointed that the New Years Eve game between Canada and USA is going to be meaningless when it comes to the standings, but hopefully it is just as good as the past years when these two teams met. Over the years they have been some of the most entertaining hockey games.

[Built Ford Tough]

Unreal goaltending from both the Czech and Russian goalies. They have both made some ridiculous saves to keep this game tied.

 

Very fun to watch these two goalies stand on their heads, and the game itself has been highly entertaining as well.

 

EDIT: And Russia scores 1:30 seconds into OT, just seconds after killing off a penalty to give them the 2-1 win and a berth in the Semi-Finals.

[Built Ford Tough]

Is there anything more entertaining than watching a Canada-Russia hockey game?

 

Jesus christ, I almost had a heart attack in that 3rd period.

 

Unfortunately the Canadians, other than Connolly, seemed to think that simply showing up entitled them to a gold medal or something and it wasn't until the game got to 6-1 that they finally realized that they have to play. At that point, the game was just too far out of reach, but man, did they ever come close by making it 6-5 and coming inches away from evening it up with 43 seconds left on that Strome shot that hit the post. Kudos to the Russian coach for having the balls to pull to Marakov in after the 5th goal. That took some serious guts and it paid off ten fold as he was rock solid and held the lead.

 

Hopefully this is the kick in the ass that Hockey Canada needs to realize that they need to take the best players, regardless of their age. There is no reason why guys like Nathan MacKinnon, Sean Monahan and Malcolm Subban should not be on the team considering how good they are just because they aren't 18 or 19 years old. Last year it was Nugent-Hopkins and the year before it was Seguin but I doubt their philosophy of this being primarily a "19 year olds" tournament.

 

 

 

Oh yeah, the Finland-Sweden game earlier in the day wasn't too shabby either. You have to feel bad for the Finnish goalie who plays brilliantly all game long to keep his team in it and literally makes one mistake behind his net trying to clear the puck, but that one mistake ends up costing the Fins the game and a chance at the Gold on Thursday.