World Junior Hockey 2005 Champions Team Canada
 

2005 World Junior Hockey Champions Team Canada

Canada thumps Russia, wins gold

The Canadian junior men's hockey team put on a dominating display of hockey to win the gold medal at the world junior championship Tuesday with a 6-1 win over Russia.
After finishing a heartbreaking second the last three years in this tournament, Canada left nothing in doubt by scoring four times in the second period for a five-goal after heading into the final 20 minutes.
The sellout crowd of 11,862 at the Ralph Engelstad Arena -- the majority of them Canadian -- began singing goodbye to the Russian team midway through the third period.
Russia had no answer for a Canadian defence that gave up only 19 shots on starter Jeff Glass.
It was the first world junior title for Canada since 1997, when the country capped a run of five straight gold medals.
Canada scored three power-play goals and its penalty killers held the vaunted Russian power-play to one lone goal in the first period.
The Canadian team played with controlled emotion and relentless determination.
Ryan Getzlaf, Danny Syvret, Jeff Carter, Patrice Bergeron, Anthony Stewart and Dion Phaneuf scored for Canada, which lost the 2002 and 2003 championship games to Russia.
Getzlaf, who was a standout in the game for Canada, and Andrew Ladd each had two assists.
Bergeron was named tournament MVP while Phaneuf was chosen the top defenceman. Both were named to the all-star team, too, along with Carter.
Russian defenceman Alexei Emelin scored a power-play goal for Russia in the first period.
Star Alexander Ovechkin was used sparingly in the second period and at the start of the third period, he was out of his skates and in his track pants on the Russian bench. He appeared to be favouring his right shoulder.
Canada put the boot on in the second period with four unanswered goals -- two of them on the power play -- and chased Russian goaltender Anton Khudobin at 3:33 after the Minnesota Wild draft pick gave up three goals on 15 shots. He was replaced by Andrei Kuznetsov.
Phaneuf's shot from the blue-line beat Kuznetsov's outstretched glove at 13:19 to make it 6-1 for Canada. Stewart tipped in a Nigel Dawes pass at 8:54.
Kuznetsov gave up a long rebound on a Sidney Crosby blast and Corey Perry chipped it over to Bergeron who had an open net at 7:53.
Carter whipped a sharp-angled shot from the boards by Khudobin to spark Canada's outburst and send the Russian goaltender to the bench.
Canadian goaltender Jeff Glass didn't face a lot of shots again behind a formidable defence, but he did make a glove same from close range on Enver Lisin after Carter's goal.
Canada had a five-minute man advantage late in the second period after Toronto Maple Leafs draft pick Dimitri Vorobiev put his stick in Dawes' face and was given a major and a game misconduct.
Emelin pulled Russia within a goal before the first period expired. His shot through traffic with 32 seconds remaining gave Russia a power-play goal.
Canada had taken a 2-0 lead on Syvret's power-play goal at eight minutes. Braydon Coburn's shot on net hit the end boards and Syvret collected it and banked it off Anton Khudobin.
Getzlaf scored 51 seconds into the game when he took a Carter drop pass and blasted it by Khudobin.
Canada killed off a 1:12 worth of a two-man Russian advantage early in the first period after Perry took an interference minor and Shea Weber hauled down Evgeni Malkin for a tripping penalty.
This Canadian junior team was the country's best in a long time and arguably the best ever. The NHL lockout combined with spike in talent in Canadian players born in 1985 made the 2005 team a formidable one. Players who might not have otherwise been available to the Canadian team from their NHL clubs were still playing in the junior ranks.
The closest team in depth and talent to this one may have been the team in 1995 -- the last time there was an NHL labour disruption -- and Canada dominated that tournament in Red Deer, Alta.
Canada outscored the opposition 32-5 during the round-robin portion of this tournament to finish first in Pool B. A 3-1 semifinal win over the Czech Republic, in which Glass faced only 11 shots and fewer quality scoring chances, sent Canada to the final of this tournament for the fourth straight year.
While the team's road to the final looked easy on paper, it wasn't without adversity as defence Cam Barker was sent home after three games with mononucleosis, forward Jeremy Colliton was able to play just over one period with a knee injury and defenceman Brent Seabrook played through a shoulder injury he suffered on the first day of selection camp.
Head coach Brent Sutter, a Stanley Cup winner during his 18-year NHL career and a former international player for Canada, guided the team with a firm, but intelligent hand.
This was Canada's oldest team at the world juniors and with a record number of returning players from last year's tournament in Helsinki, they knew the drill and what was at stake.
A dozen players on this squad played for Canada last year and suffered the disappointment of wasting a two-goal lead in the third period. The U.S. scored three times in the period to win 4-3.
Attendance at the 2005 tournament was 195,771, which fell short of the record set by Halifax in 2003 at 242,173. The hundreds of Canadians who made the trek to Grand Forks, two hours south of the Manitoba border, swelled the number of spectators in the stands.
Tuesday's gold-medal game was as close to a home game for the Canadian team as it could be without actually being in the country.
The 2006 world junior hockey championship will be held in Vancouver, Kamloops and Kelowna, B.C.

Canadian juniors can be called best ever with dominating gold-medal effort
 

If there was any question whether these players were unique in the history of Canadian junior teams before Tuesday's final, this squad put an exclamation mark on their answer with a resounding 6-1 win over Russia for gold. Leading 2-1 after the first period on goals by Ryan Getzlaf and Danny Syvret, Canada put the game out of reach when Jeff Carter, Patrice Bergeron, Anthony Stewart and Dion Phaneuf scored in the second frame.
This was a talented, mature and relentlessly determined team thanks to a combination of the NHL lockout and a spike in talent of Canadian players born in 1985.
Canada outscored opposing teams 41-7 in this tournament. What is more telling is that it gave up only seven goals in six games and only three of them were even-strength goals. They never trailed once.
The closest team in depth and talent to this one may be the team in Red Deer, Alta., in 1995, which was the last time there was an NHL labour disruption. Canada outshot the rest of the field 49-14 that year.
It is a measure of Canada's smothering defence that starter Jeff Glass saw only 19 shots from the skilled Russians and only 11 in the semifinal against the Czech Republic. Canada was so strong defensively it didn't need Glass to be spectacular, just dependable, which he was.
Only a shot off a Canadian stick by Alexei Emelin beat Glass in the final.
Canadian head coach Brent Sutter made defence a priority because he felt with such a talented group the offence would take care of itself and he was correct.
With the exception of an inconsistent performance in the opening game against Slovakia, Canada had the same work ethic and attitude against every team, regardless of the colour of the jersey, which led to some lopsided scores.
This Canadian team had a lot of things going for it, not the least of which was that Ralph Engelstad Arena often felt like it was in Canada. Hundreds of Canadians, most of them Manitobans, made the trek to Grand Forks to create a home-ice atmosphere for their team.
"I think the Canadian people must be proud of this team," said Russian forward Alexander Ovechkin, who took hit after hit from the Canadian team and left the game in the second period with a shoulder injury.
But while the team's road to victory looked easy on paper, but it wasn't without its bumps.
Defenceman Cam Barker was sent home after three games with mononucleosis, forward Jeremy Colliton was able to play only one period with a knee injury and defenceman Brent Seabrook played through a shoulder injury he suffered on the first day of selection camp.
Sutter, a Stanley Cup winner during his 18-year NHL career and a former international player for Canada, guided the team with a firm, but intelligent hand. This was Canada's oldest team at the world juniors and with a record number of returning players from last year's tournament, they knew the drill and what was at stake.
"I'm a big believer you have to be a mentally strong team to have any success," Sutter said. "Going into today, I was obviously nervous and worked up, but I also had tremendous amount of confidence in this group because of the way they had handled themselves not just in the games, but the way they handled themselves between games and at practice and how hard they practised.
"They were truly professionals every day, every step of the way."
While the veterans didn't like to talk about last year's debacle in Helsinki, where the U.S. scored three goals in the third period for a 4-3 win, there was a sense of redemption for that in the team's victory Tuesday.
Canada's last gold at the world junior tournament was 1997 and there has been four silver medals and two bronze since then.
The NHL lockout was a factor not so much in giving the junior players who had been in the NHL last season - Bergeron of the Boston Bruins was the only one - but it kept players who might have been there this season in the junior ranks, such as forwards Carter, Getzlaf, Michael Richards and Stewart and defenceman Phaneuf.
Bergeron was named MVP of the tournament and has NHL teams kicking themselves for not taking him in the first round of the 2003 draft. He helped Canada win the 2004 men's world championship and now a world junior title in 2005.
"It was the experience of my life because it was with guys my age," said Bergeron.
He led the tournament in points with five goals and eight assists, followed by Getzlaf, a standout in the gold-medal game, with three goals and nine assists.
Carter was another impact player for Canada, leading the team in goals with seven. Phaneuf was a workhorse on the short-staffed defence and also contributed on offence.
Sidney Crosby took his game to another level from when he was a 16-year-old playing for this team last year. He excelled among players two years older and will be invited to play for Canada many more times.
Richards delivered as captain by scored the needed goal, winning the key faceoff or dishing out a team-lifting hit. Canada's special teams were the best in the tournament thanks to the efforts of players such as Nigel Dawes, Clarke MacArthur, Shea Weber and Colin Fraser.
"This is the big one," said Getzlaf. "We're going to enjoy this for years to come. Anytime you see the guys, we'll have that special bond now."
Attendance at the 2005 tournament was 195,771, which fell short of the record set by Halifax in 2003 at 242,173, and it would have been a lot lower if not for Canadians.
A new attendance record could be set in 2006, however, as Vancouver is the host city and games will be played in the 18,630-seat General Motors Place and 7,500-seat Pacific Coliseum. Barker and Crosby are eligible to play for the Canadian junior team in Vancouver.

A gold rush of goals
 

Canada completed its stress-free skate through the 2005 world junior hockey tournament last night with one final dominating display that ended a painful seven-year gold-medal drought.
Canada defeated Russia 6-1 before the mostly Canadian capacity crowd of 11,862 at the Ralph Engelstad Arena, near the campus of the University of North Dakota.
"To have that much fan support is unbelievable," Canadian forward Ryan Getzlaf said. "They spent a lot of money to be here and we appreciate that. It was awesome. A lot credit has to go to them."
The fans saluted the Canadian juniors by chanting "Ca-na-da" after the game. The players, who went into celebration mode in the final seconds of the game throwing their sticks and gloves in the air, could barely contain themselves when Wayne Gretzky presented Canadian captain Michael Richards with the championship trophy. He later shook hands with the players, coaches and training staff after the gold-medal presentation.
"We will enjoy this one for years to come," Getzlaf said.
Most National Hockey League scouts agreed that this was the best junior team to represent Canada and likely the best from any country in the event's history. Although this edition was the third Canadian team to go through a world junior with a perfect record — in 1995 Canada was 7-0, followed by a 6-0 record in 1996 — this team was never threatened.
The Canadians never trailed in any of the six games, scored at least one goal in 16 of 18 periods, outscored the opposition 41-7 and held a 259-107 advantage in shots.
For all the bravado that the Russians demonstrated in their semi-final victory over the United States on Sunday, they never mounted a serious challenge against Canada.
Russian standout Alexander Ovechkin, who predicted his team would score often on untested Canadian goalie Jeff Glass, watched the third period standing at the end of the bench area with his right arm in a sling.
"I didn't want to get into a war of words [on Monday]," Glass said. "But I guess we're the ones leaving with a gold medal around our necks."
Ovechkin was a non-factor in the game. Canada's youngest player, 17-year-old Sidney Crosby, slammed the Russian forward with an open-ice hit midway through the first period. Ovechkin said his injury was not from the Crosby hit, but that he felt too much pain to continue early in the second period.
The victory was sweet revenge for a dozen of the Canadian juniors, who were reduced to tears last year in Helsinki when they blew a 3-1 lead in the third period of the gold-medal final against the United States, losing 4-3. Twelve of the 18 points registered by the Canadians last night were scored by one of those returning players.
Patrice Bergeron was selected the tournament MVP and to the all-star team. He was joined on the latter by defenceman Dion Phaneuf and forward Jeff Carter. Czech goalie Marek Schwarz, Ovechkin and U.S. blueliner Ryan Suter rounded out the team.
Bergeron, who played for the Boston Bruins last year, became the first player to win a world senior gold medal before winning a world junior gold. He is one of a handful of the Canadian players who would have been in the National Hockey League had there been no lockout this season.
It was the 135th victory for Canada at the world junior tournament and its 11th gold medal.
"They are gold medalists because they deserve to be, not only by the scores but because they acted like professionals in every aspect," Canadian head coach Brent Sutter said.
The Canadians spent the past 24 days together after gathering in Winnipeg on Dec. 12 for the selection camp. They arrived last night 2 hours 17 minutes before game time ready to get down to business and win Canada's first gold medal since 1997.
Canada again displayed superior defensive positioning and dominated the faceoff circle.
Canada's penalty killing was again solid. The team killed off 34 of 38 penalties in the tourney and last night was put to test in the first period, successfully killing off a 1:12 two-man disadvantage.
Russian defenceman Alexei Emelin was able to sneak a shot through traffic on power play in the final minute of the opening 20 minutes to make the score 2-1 for the Canadians.
Canada received first-period goals from Getzlaf and defenceman Danny Syvret and then broke the game wide open with goals in the second period from Jeff Carter, Bergeron, Anthony Stewart and Phaneuf.
Canadian defenceman Cam Barker, who left the team last Friday after being diagnosed with mononucleosis, returned from Winnipeg to take in the game.!

Bergeron named tournament MVP
 

Canadian forward Patrice Bergeron is bringing home more than a gold medal from the world junior hockey championship, adding a tournament scoring title, MVP and all-star honours to his haul.
Bergeron had a goal and an assist in Tuesday's 6-1 win over Russia in the gold-medal game, giving him five goals and eight assists. He edged out teammate Ryan Getzlaf, who had a goal and two assists in the final, by one point for the scoring title.
Teammate Dion Phaneuf was named the tournament's top defenceman, no surprise given his dominance on the blue line. His physical presence made opposing forwards think twice before heading near the Canadian goal.
Phaneuf and forward Jeff Carter were also named to the tournament all-star team.
Czech Marek Schwarz was named the top goaltender and to the all-star team while Russian Alexander Ovechkin, who hurt his right shoulder in the final, was the tournament's top forward and an all-star.
American defenceman Ryan Suter rounded out the all-star team.