U.S. Wins 2010 World Junior Championship

Man, what a game that was a few days ago between the U.S. and Canada for the World Junior Championships Gold Medal.

As happened during their New Year's Eve opening round game, Canada came back from a two goal 3rd period deficit to reach overtime. This time it was different result...



From his CNNSI piece "Character is golden for Team USA in World Junior Championship", Alan Muir wrote of both the magnitude of the win for the U.S. (their first... and Canada's first non-gold in the tournament since 2004) and how the game played itself out tactically.

Keeping in mind that it's the players on the ice who win or loss, two coaches decisions factored heavily into the outcome. The first was from US Coach Dean Blais who replaced Mike Lee with Jack Campbell in goal for U.S. once Canada scored to make the score 3-3. The second was from Canada Coach Willie Desjardins who replaced starting goalie Jake Allen with Martin Jones once the U.S. pulled out to a 5-3 lead.

The U.S. certainly deserved the win, but it earlier action from Desjardins may well have made the difference. This is conjecture, though, as it played out as it did and the U.S. was victorious. Reminds me in a way of how people don't talk a lot about the decision by Soviet Union Coach Viktor Tikhonov to pull Vladislav Tretiak in their 1980 Olympic Gold Medal game vs the U.S. He did... and the Miracle on Ice then followed.

Lots of lots of additional World Junior Championship coverage included a large video library can be found on the TSN World Juniors microsite.

Next year the tournament is in Buffalo and hopefully the U.S. fans can provide the same support for the home team that the Canadians showed. Course, Toronto is pretty close to Buffalo...

2009-2010 World Junior Championship TV Schedule

Really like me some World Junior Hockey... last year in Ottawa was great TV and looking forward to this year's tournament in Saskatoon.

16 games will be broadcast (hopefully all in HD) on NHL Network in the US with the schedule here and the quarterfinals starting at 2:00PST on Sat Jan 2. Also of note on the schedule is the US-Canada game New Years Eve at 5:00PST.

Good times.

World Junior Hockey Tournament in Ottawa

The annual World Juniors kicked off Dec 26 in Ottawa and features most of the best under-20 hockey players in the world... the exception being those teens already in the NHL whose teams won't release them to play.

Team Canada has won the championship four years in a row and as would be expected, is one of the favorites this year... with the U.S., Sweden and Russia also being viewed as contenders.

There's fairly significant televison coverage in the U.S. provided by the NHL Network with the broadcast schedule posted here (Sunday 12/28 linked). In terms of web coverage, TSN out of Canada has tons of information available online at their opening page on the tournament and then linked pages such as the schedule and video on demand.

Another page off the TSN site, though, illustrates what makes this such a compelling event... the chance to watch some of the future stars of the NHL. Linked here is a listing of the year by year tournament all-star selections. It's quite a list and features from just the last four years current NHL stars like Drew Doughty of the Kings (2008), Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane of the Blackhawks (2007), Evgeni Malkin of the Penguins (2006) and oh yeah... Alexander Ovechkin of the Capitals (2005).

Pretty good company for the players who will emerge as the best from Ottawa over the next week and a half.