Chapter 7: Oh Canada!
We left for Alberta on December 26th. People in Canada were really great to us, it’s a beautiful country and people love hockey! If we had a lot of problem winning the Four Nations tournament, this is going to be ten times more difficult. This is arguably the most important tournament this year.
We’re in Pool A with team West, Ontario, Slovakia & Germany. In Pool B, there are Pacific, Quebec, Atlantic, Finland & Czech Republic.
We are going to play against Slovakia on the 29th, Germany on the 30th, Ontario on the 1st and West on the 2nd. Depending on the position we finish in the standings, we’re going to play another game on the 3rd, and if we’re in the top 4 of the tournament we’ll play again on the 4th.
We need to win the first game against Slovakia if we want to have any success in the tournament. According to Michael, they don’t have a really strong squad so we should be able to beat them. Well he was wrong, they had a very good team, and even if we played an excellent game, we left the arena with a 3-3 tie. Chris Atkinson scored the first two goals of the game but team Slovakia came back with three straight goals. Patrick Kane had the game tying goal with a few minutes left in the second period. In other games, the Czechs beat Finland 5-0, Ontario beat Germany 2-0 and Pacific beat Quebec 2-0.
The following day was the game everyone expected to be the easiest in the tournament, the game against Germany and Palmer was the starter. We didn’t destroy them, but they didn’t get much chance during the whole game as we beat them 4-1. Chuk, Geoffrion, McBain & Flynn had the goals. Marshall and I, for the second straight games, had our chance but could not get the puck pas the keeper. In other games, Atlantic tied 3-3 with Czech Republic, West beat Slovakia 4-1 and Pacific beat Finland 7-6.
The next day was our day off. Quebec beat Atlantic 5-2, West tied 5-5 with Ontario, Slovakia beat Germany 4-2 and Pacific beat Czech Republic 4-2.
Our next game, on January 1st, was against Ontario. It was one of the most important challenge and we definitely had to beat them as they were, along with the West, the strongest team in the Pool and only two teams in each division could make it to the semi-finals round. Well we were up to the challenge as we started the game strongly leading by three goals after forty minutes on our way to a 4-2 win. Johnson, Kane, Popko and I had the goals. Mine was the game winner in the second period. In other games, Pacific beat Atlantic 3-2, West beat Germany 4-0 and Quebec beat Finland 4-2.
Our final game of the round robin was going to be a determining one because if we lost to team West, the goal differential was going to be the determining factor as to whom of us and the winner of the Ontario-Slovakia game was going to advance to the semi-finals. Well we played awfully and when the final second ticked off, the score indicated 6-2 for team West. O’Brien and I had the goals.
Our game was a late-afternoon one and following the game, we decided to stay and watch the Ontario-Slovakia game which was going to be played at the same arena. Ontario needed to beat Slovakia by at least two points to finish second in the pool while Slovakia had to beat Ontario by three. Following the first period, Ontario was leading 2-1 and the stress was at the maximum for our team, simply playing in the 5th place game wasn’t enough. Ontario extended their lead to 3-1 in the second and with twenty minutes to go. In the third period, everything looked like Slovakia was going to make it, they had scored three straight goals and were now leading 4-3 when everything simply stumbled over… Ontario scored twice and with less than a minute to go they pulled their goaltender for a 6 on 4, trying to get the goal that would make them advance to the semi-finals. And it happened, with twenty-three seconds to play Jordan Staal released a wrister top shelf and Ontario won 6-4, pulling us over to finish second in Pool A.
I can’t describe how it felt right there… during a moment we thought we were going to make it, but we had no control and this goal just destroyed everything. We had so much success this year and it was difficult to take that first failure.
Anyway, I’ll try to describe the rest of the tournament. In other games that day, Atlantic beat Finland 3-2 and Quebec beat Czech Republic 5-4.
Code:
POOL A GP W L T PTS GF GA
West 4 3 0 1 7 19 8
Ontario 4 2 1 1 5 15 13
USA 4 2 1 1 5 13 12
Slovakia 4 1 2 1 3 12 15
Germany 4 0 4 0 0 3 14
POOL B GP W L T PTS GF GA
Pacific 4 4 0 0 8 16 10
Quebec 4 3 1 0 6 14 10
Czech Republic 4 1 2 1 3 14 12
Atlantic 4 1 2 1 3 10 13
Finland 4 0 4 0 0 10 19
The round-robin results were now available; West was going to face Quebec while Ontario was going to face Pacific in the all-Canadian U-17 semi-finals. In the fifth place game, we were going to face Czech Republic. Slovakia would face Atlantic in the seventh place game while Germany and Finland would face to try to save their honor as both team still had no wins in the tournament.
Before the game against Czech Republic, McBain stepped up in the locker-room, it still looked like everyone was broke down by the preceding day’s failure and nobody seemed pumped up for the game.
“Guys, it was tough to see that happen yesterday, but we’re here to represent USA and we have to come out strong simply because this is for our country’s honor. I don’t think anyone here wants to finish 6th out of ten teams, so we’re gonna go out there and beat the ass out of these Czechs.”
The speech pumped us up, although we weren’t going to play with the same emotions as in a semi-final game, we still were going out there to win. We won 6-3, and didn’t celebrate much, we were just glad to save our honor. O’Brien, Carman, Marshall (2), Kane and I had the goals.
Finland got their first win by beating Germany 6-1 and Slovakia beat Atlantic 3-2 in the other “meaningless” games. In the semi-finals, West beat Quebec 4-3 in OT while Pacific beat Ontario 2-0.
The next day, West was named World Under-17 Champions as they beat Ontario 2-1. Quebec beat Ontario 4-3 to finish third.
1. West
2. Pacific
3. Quebec
4. Ontario
5. USA
6. Czech Republic
7. Slovakia
8. Atlantic
9. Finland
10. Germany
If we forget about the way it turned out, the tournament was great. People in Canada love hockey so much and we played against such great players. So finally, here are the top 5 scorers in the tournament and on our team.
Code:
NAME TEAM GP G A PTS
Zach Hamill PAC 6 4 9 13
Jonathan Toews WES 6 6 5 11
Riley Holzapfel WES 6 5 6 11
Ben Maxwell PAC 6 3 7 10
Jordan Staal ONT 6 3 6 9
Code:
NAME GP G A PTS
Safwat, Marshall 5 2 5 7
Safwat, Garrett 5 3 4 7
Carman, Michael 5 1 5 6
Kane, Patrick 5 3 2 5
Geoffrion, Blake 5 1 4 5
Chapter 8: Ending the season should be posted on Wednesday September 6th. Sorry to have been late for this chapter, I completely forgot we were Sunday yesterday.