CZECHIA STUNS FINLAND FOR BRONZE
Tomas Hamara’s country hadn’t won a medal at the world junior hockey championship in nearly two decades heading into the 2023 tournament. Czechia now owns two in two years.
Hamara scored the winner with 1:41 left in regulation Friday as the Czechs battled back from a 5-2 deficit late in the second period to shock Finland 8-5 and win bronze.
Czechia lost the goldmedal game 12 months ago to Canada after finishing fourth in 2022. Before that, the nation hadn’t secured any hardware since grabbing silver in 2005.
The Professional Women’s Hockey League says its first game reached 2.9 million viewers. The figure represents the combined number of viewers that saw a potion of the game’s coverage, including pre-game content, through the league’s three Canadian national broadcast partners.
New York’s 4-0 win over host Toronto Jan. 1 was shown on CBC, Sportsnet, and TSN. The league said in a statement Friday that the game had a combined average audience of 879,000 viewers. The PWHL says the average audience peaked at 1.113 million midway through the second period.
Ella Shelton scored the historic opening goal and Corinne Schroeder earned the first shutout in front of a sellout crowd of 2,537 at Toronto’s Mattamy Athletic Centre.
Denis Shapovalov, Gabriel Diallo, Alexis Galarneau and Vasek Pospisil will represent Canada at next month’s Davis Cup qualification tie against South Korea in Montreal, Tennis Canada said on Friday.
The tie, scheduled for Feb. 2-3 at IGA Stadium, will determine which country qualifies for September’s group stage of the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga, Spain.
Canada is currently the No. 2 country in the Davis Cup rankings, while South Korea is No. 18.
The Roughriders are parting ways with Derrick Moncrief.
On Friday, the CFL club announced it has released the veteran linebacker after five seasons with the Green and White. He was slated to become a free agent Feb. 13.
The 30-year-old Moncrief originally joined the Riders in 2017 and went on to become a West Division and CFL allstar in 2019. He then turned that into an NFL opportunity, as he spent time with the Las Vegas Raiders and Los Angeles Rams in 2020.
In 2021, the 6-foot-2, 220-pound Alabama native returned to the CFL with Edmonton, before returning to Saskatchewan for the 2022 season, where he was again named a West Division allstar. In his career with Saskatchewan, Moncrief has played 66 games, registering 225 tackles, nine interceptions and four sacks.
Moncrief was also a player ambassador for the Riders as he travelled around the province, giving 40 presentations about mental health and wellness over a four-month period. He was named the 2023 community player of the year.