Call it the "Buffalo Blizzard" or the "Snow Bowl", as Team Canada and Team USA played before 44,000+ fans on yesterday (Friday) afternoon, at New ERA Field at Orchard Park, the home of the NFL's Buffalo Bills. It was the first time WJHC history that an attendance mark has been shattered as it was thedirst time a WJHC had been played in the outdoors.
Despite the temperature drop and the continuous snowfall that made for blizzard-like conditions, Team Canada and Team USA put on a classic of a World Junior game.
With Canada firmly in the lead heading into the third period, thanks to scorers suchas Cale Makar, Dillingham Dubé, & Boris Katchouk, it looked like the Canadians were going to win this one. Then, the roof fell in for Canada, so to speak. Penalties after dumb penalty, at one point, the Americans enjoyed a 5v3 advantage, and before anyone knew it, Team USA had tied it all up in less than a minute, on goals by Perenovich and Tkachuk.
Overtime. No scoring. On to a shootout where Canadians were blanked and the US connected on two out of three. Game over. 4-3 for Team USA.
Some of the Canadian players such as goalkeeper Carter Hart who made 32 saves, blamed it on the snow:
"When the snow gets pretty thick there and there isn't a shovel there for a while, then it starts to build up and you can't really see the puck very well," said Hart. "But it's always nice when we got the clears. It's quite a big difference when there's snow and there's not."
But it was no doubt in anyone's mind what really cost Canada the game, a lack of discipline that lead the way to the penalty box too many times, exploited by the shrewd Americans who found the holes in Canada's strategy and succeeded where the Canadians failed. The timing could not have been better for Team USA. Team Canada all but gift-wrapped the win for them. Ouch.
Much to the consternation and frustration of Canadian coach Dominique Ducharme:
"We had control of the game," said Ducharme. "We put them back into the game with bad penalties."
"We're killing that two-minute penalty early in the third period, there's about two inches of snow on the ice and it's a two-on-two and we're trying to go score," said Ducharme. "Turnover, comes back, and they score."
Okay, so the snow gets some other blame, but one cannot absolve the stupidity of the nature of those penalties in that third period. Disicpline is where it's at.
For more:
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/world-junior-roundup-canada-us-outdoor-1.4467839http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/world-junior-canada-usa-outdoor-wharnsby-1.4467834