Rematch meltdown ‘tough pill’ for Canada
>INSIDE Brady Tkachuk’s
shootout marker helped the defending champion U.S. strike again,
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y.— Michael McLeod has seen this before: A big game between Canada and the United States at the world junior hockey championship goes to a shootout, and it’s the American anthem being played at the end of the game.
Keiffer Bellows and Brady Tkachuk scored for the Americans in the shootout to claim the first outdoor game in the tournament’s history on American soil, a 4-3 win over Canada. A year ago, the Americans won gold in Montreal, again using the shootout to claim the win.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow once again, losing to the Americans in the shootout,” said McLeod, one of seven Canadians who played in both games. “The only good thing is this was round-robin.”
Cale Makar, Dillon Dubé and Boris Katchouk scored for Canada, who got off to a 3-1 lead and seemed on its way to eke out a measure of revenge.
Makar scored on a shot from the point on the power play in the first period. It was the first goal by a Team Canada defenceman in the tournament. Dube and Katchouk, with a tip-in, scored in the second.
But Bellows, Scott Perunovich and Tkachuk scored for the Americans, who rebounded from a shocking loss to Slovakia on Thursday. Perunovich and Tkachuk scored 34 seconds apart in the third period to force overtime.
The Canadian lead looked safe, but Canada got away from its game while the Americans, bolstered by fans chanting “U-S-A,” came on late.
“Maybe in the third, we tried to be a little too cute,” McLeod said. “The first two periods we played simple and structured.”
Eight of the last 10 games between Canada and the United States have been decided by one or two goals.
Canada fell to 2-0-1-0, picking up a single point for the shootout loss to go along with six points from two earlier regulation wins. Canada finishes Group A preliminary-round action Saturday against Denmark. A regulation win over winless Denmark will clinch first place in the group for Canada.
“They’re a hungry team that wants to get a win in the tournament,” McLeod said.
With falling snow as a constant backdrop and more than 44,000 fans in the stands, the game came off as the spectacle promised. The ice was choppy, dangerously so in some places it seemed, with players falling. But it didn’t seem to matter.
“It was a great game to be part of,” McLeod said. “The fans were crazy. The stands were packed. The snow added that Winter Classic feel.”
In all, 44,592 took in the outdoor game, a record crowd for a world junior game. They came despite the cold and snow and some were late due to traffic issues on the Canadian side of the border.
The Canadians showed a bit of a sense of humour following the loss, chanting “We have health care” in response to the “U-S-A” chants.
The IIHF chose the location for the game, in part, because it was the location of the first NHL Winter Classic 10 years ago. The Buffalo Sabres and Buffalo Bills were part of the organizing committee, bringing their expertise in the logistics of putting hockey rinks in football stadiums.
Early, the crowd was sparse. Many Canadians reported problems on the QEW and at the border, delaying travel times. The crowd filled in nicely, though. The snow fell pretty much the entire game, adding to the snowglobe effect that was reminiscent of that first Winter Classic, when Sidney Crosby scored in a shootout to give the Penguins a win over Buffalo.
Though there were other outdoor hockey games prior, the success of that Winter Classic has had a snowball effect on the number of outdoor games. Junior hockey, the American Hockey League and U.S. college hockey now play outdoor games regularly.
“We got very fortunate that day,” recalled NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly. “If it was five degrees warmer and had been a steady rain instead of snow, I’m not sure we’d be playing these games the way we’re doing now. It was a very fortunate confluence of events, a superstar shootout in the falling snow. It did capture the imagination.”