World juniors never fail to deliver drama
Even with Canada eliminated early, 2019 tournament takes its place among those with special moments
If Saturday’s gold-medal game wasn’t enough to get you excited, here are 2019’s first musings and meditations on the world of sports.
This is the beauty of the World Junior Championship. The details of games and tournaments get lost over time but what endures is the powerful, timeless images these kids provide.
I first started following the WJC in 1982, my first year in newspapers and the first year Canada sent a national team to the event. I’ve also been fortunate enough to cover it live seven times and each of these tournaments supplied its own indelible memories.
In 1995 in Red Deer, it was the first Canadian dream team, coached by Don Hay, that went undefeated and untied on the way to gold.
In 1999 in Winnipeg it was Roberto Luongo carrying the Canadians to the final before Artem Chubarov’s delivered the golden goal for the Russians in overtime.
In 2003 in Halifax it was watching a 16-year-old Alex Ovechkin announce himself to the hockey world.
Two years later it was the greatest-ever Canadian team — Sidney Crosby, Patrice Bergeron, Jeff Carter, Shea Weber — laying waste to the field in Grand Forks. The next year in Vancouver it was a superb coaching job by Brent Sutter, guiding the Canadians to a win over Russia and Evgeni Malkin in Vancouver with the late Luc Bourdon on the ice when the final horn sounded.
In 2009, it was Pat Quinn and a superb Canadian team — John Tavares, P.K. Subban, sigh, Cody Hodgson — winning gold in Ottawa against Victor Hedman and the Swedes.
As for this year, well, it usually takes some time for those images to come into focus but considering the players who made Saturday night’s final so memorable, the 2019 tournament will have its own place in the event’s history.
Vancouver Canucks’ draft pick Quinn Hughes, who was introduced to this market for the first time, was splendid in the final game and his brother Jack didn’t disappoint.
For the Finns, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has the look of a franchise goalie and Kaapo Kakko, who’s rated just behind Jack Hughes at the top of the 2019 draft class, became a hero in his country when he scored the golden goal.
Maybe the Canadians left a hole in the tournament when they fell to the Finns in the quarter-finals but, when you take out the wide-angle lens, this year’s WJC again delivered those moments which have come to define this event. Yes, the hockey was compelling but it’s those images we remember.
The 2019 tournament marked the third time in six years Finland has won gold at the WJC. They won twice in the 28 years between 1982 and 2013.
Kimmo Oikarinen, the GM of the Finnish junior team, was asked what their recent track record says about the state of hockey in his country.
“For sure it’s a big thing, but I think the biggest thing is we finally won a championship on a small rink,” he answered. “We had a very strong feeling that we’d be there in the end. It’s a huge thing for us.
“I believe our players are more prepared to come to North America. They’re more comfortable. They don’t think too much. They just go and play and it’s incredible to watch that.”
The Seahawks’ defeat in Dallas on Saturday night have been the most lopsided twopoint loss in NFL history.
Forget the final score, whenever a play was needed on either side of the ball, the Cowboys made it. Even when they trailed late in the third quarter, they never looked uncomfortable or threatened, largely because they’d taken away the Seahawks’ ground game and the ’Hawks just couldn’t bring themselves to abandon the run.
I understand that’s a big part of their identity under Pete Carroll but so’s winning and they were never going to beat the Cowboys on the ground.
On one level, there was nothing inherently dirty about Jesperi Kotkaniemi’s play which left Elias Pettersson injured. But that’s only a small part of this story. Throughout this season, there have just been too many times when liberties were taken with the Canucks’ young star.
Yes, Pettersson has to learn how to play through that, just like all great players. But the Canucks have also created an environment where it’s too easy for the opposition to harass the young centre. We’re talking about a player who’s changing the future of this franchise. He needs to be protected and if that means a response which is disproportionate to the actions against him, so be it. A message has to be sent.
And finally, we understand the game’s gatekeepers in our country would rather undergo a proctology exam than steal an idea from the Americans but is it time for Canada to consider a national developmental program at the U17 and U18 levels?
In the last eight years, Canada has won three medals at the WJC, golds in 2015 and 2018 and a silver in 2017; while the U.S. has won five, two golds, a silver and two bronze.
The difference in the two countries is the National Team Development Program in the States which concentrates the best 16- and 17-year-old players in the country in a training centre in Plymouth, Mi., and spits out elite players at a dizzying rate.
It would take a leap of faith for Canada to create a similar program and the junior teams would have something to say about that. But there are a number of creative ways to come at this which could satisfy everyone’s needs.
Who knows? It might not be the best solution for Canadian hockey but it’s a conversation worth having.