Team Canada 2020 World Junior Champions

Yet another Gold Medal game for the history books and of course our Canadians were in the thick of it. Down 3 - 1 in the final frame against the Russians I imagine many Canadians like myself were more than a little worried that this would be another Russian blow-out. After 2 periods of intense well-played hockey by both teams and four trips to the penalty box by our guys, faith seemed to be dimming. Were it not for the penalty-killings skills of our lads and the outstanding net-minding of Hofer things could have been so much worse. Still as the 3rd P got underway things weren't looking all that great for Team Canada.
Then the magic happened. Addison whipped a shot at the net that caught a lucky bounce off the leg of McMichael and into the net to bring us within 1 of the Russians. Russian then took a penalty and on the PP our Captain Hayton, playing with separated shoulder suffered against the Fins in the semi-final, tied the game at 3 apiece. With just over 4 minutes left it looked as though the game may go to OT but as has often happened in historic Canadian World hockey, a young player who had yet to score a single goal in the tournament had his golden moment as he slipped Canada's 4th goal by the Russian goalie. Akil Thomas joined a long list of young Canadians who stepped up when a hero was most needed scoring what would become the winning goal for Canada.
Still, with under 4 minutes to play, Team Canada drew yet another penalty and the Russians were back on a PP. Team Canada was facing a 6 man advantage after Russia pulled their goalie but then the wheels fell off the Russian's bus. A questionable call that will long be debated by hockey fans when the refs didn't call a shot off the TSN camera a penalty, the Russian bench erupted in furor. Russia was subsequently called for interference and another player was penalized for playing with a broken stick and Canada ran out the time-clock with a 5 - 3 man advantage and just like that, Canada was Golden again.
This tournament was a form of redemption for our Canadian kids. After five years of losing to the US, they beat them in the prelims. After losing to Finland in the final last year, the beat them in the semi-final and after a crushing prelim loss to the Russians, they took Gold.
Well done Team Canada.

It's to bad that the Russians couldn't use the greatest hockey player of all time. Because with his unmatched goal scoring ability I'm pretty sure the game wouldn't have even been close.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/sports/russia-s- ... -1.4417336

To bad the only gold those Russian kids will get is the stuff they dig out of the Kolyma Gold mines?