HALIFAX — Brandt Clarke was manning his position on the blue line early in the second period when the action abruptly stopped. The Canadian defenceman knew Connor Bedard just had the puck on his stick.
Then he didn’t.
There were gasps and cheers moments later Thursday night from the red-clad crowd inside Scotiabank Centre when they – along with the officials and Bedard’s teammates – realized what happened.
The 17-year-old phenom had perfectly placed a shot from a tight, near-impossible angle under the crossbar on the unsuspecting Austrian netminder for his first of two goals in what would turn into an 11-0 romp.
“Very sudden,” Clarke said when asked his perspective following Friday’s practice. “Then you look at the replay and you’re like, ‘What in the world?’ It was literally a puck-width of space and he put it in there only like he can.
“Pretty remarkable.”
It has, quite frankly, been a remarkable week at the world junior hockey championship for the 2023 NHL draft’s presumptive top pick.
Bedard has 14 points to lead the tournament – linemate Logan Stankoven is second with seven – and he’s tied Jordan Eberle’s national record of 14 career goals at the men’s under-20 event.
The North Vancouver, B.C., native also knotted a Canadian single-game mark with seven points in Wednesday’s 11-2 drubbing of Germany before putting up six more against Austria.
“Pretty special,” said forward Dylan Guenther, a member of the Arizona Coyotes loaned to Canada for the tournament.
“You don’t see that – ever.”
Except you might when No. 16 is on the ice.
And Clarke, a member of the Los Angeles Kings, believes Bedard could play in the NHL right now.
“He’s got the drive, he’s got the skill, he’s got determination,” Clarke said. “There’s not exceptional status for the NHL.
“But if there was, he’d be the No. 1 candidate.”
The star centre for the Western Hockey League’s Regina Pats – coincidentally where Eberle played – is also just four points back of the record 31 put up over three world junior tournaments by Eric Lindros.
It’s unlikely, however, the event will ever see Bedard again with a straight-line path to the NHL coming after this season.
The world junior records are nice, but what Bedard really craves is a moment like the one Eberle is truly remembered for – his dramatic tying goal in the dying seconds of the 2009 semifinals in Ottawa against Russia.
“If you ask anyone in the country, they’d want to be scoring that goal,” Bedard said. “It would be nice to score a big one like he has.”
With the tournament hosts set to meet Sweden on Saturday in a New Year’s Eve matchup with massive seeding implications, Canadian head coach Dennis Williams said Bedard would trade each of his points for another gold medal after also winning August’s pandemic-delayed showcase.
“Everyone loves scoring goals and being on the scoresheet,” Williams said. “But getting to know him deep down, he’s here for one thing – he wants to repeat.
“He’ll do whatever it takes.”
That drive comes, at least in part, from Bedard’s appreciation of his dad’s profession.
Tom Bedard is a logger in B.C., often starting his days before dawn and spending hours on the road getting to and from his gruelling job.
“Pretty hard worker,” Connor said of his father, whose birthday is Saturday. “His schedule’s probably tougher than most. He comes home and he’s still the most positive guy.
“Realizing what he does makes me feel so lucky just to play hockey.”
And Canada feels lucky to have Bedard.
“First played with him at the under-18 tournament,” said defenceman Jack Matier. “He was the quiet kid. Coming back here, I really notice his confidence, but also his humility off the ice.
“And a very special player on the ice with his highlight-reel goals and all the skill in the world.”
Clarke was asked what he thinks pushes Bedard, a player already being mentioned in the same breath as Connor McDavid.
“People get motivated in different ways,” he said. “A guy that knows his abilities, likes to put on a show for people, likes to make plays with the puck, has the utmost confidence in himself. The drives him. He wants to be better than he was last game.
“Just the kind of person he is.”
His country couldn’t ask for anything more.
SEEDING SCENES
Canada enters the final day of Group A action with six points from three games. Sweden leads with eight, followed by Czechia with seven.
Canada dropped its opening game to Czechia. A regulation win for the Canadians over the Swedes would guarantee them second place ahead of Monday’s quarterfinals.
Czechia – the country commonly known as the Czech Republic – takes on Germany in its round-robin finale.
MILIC GETS THE CALL
Williams announced Thomas Milic would start in goal ahead of Benjamin Gaudreau.
The only player not drafted when eligible on the Canadian roster – Bedard and Adam Fantilli get their turn in June – the 19-year-old netminder has used that as fuel.
“I’m pretty proud,” Milic said of backstopping a star-studded roster. “(Not being drafted) is always something that’s in the back of my mind. But right now my top priority is this tournament and helping the team.
“If you’re playing good, you’re playing good. That’s all that matters in tournaments like this.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 30, 2022.
Olympic champion Maggie Mac Neil announced her retirement from swimming Thursday.
The gold medallist in the women’s 100-metre butterfly at Tokyo’s Summer Games in 2021 made the announcement in an Instagram post alongside a photo of her swimming as a child.
“The little girl above would have never dreamed this is where her love of swimming would take her,” Mac Neil wrote. “I am so grateful for all the memories, people, and places I have gotten to experience just through swimming.
“I’m excited to begin the next chapter of my life journey, as I embark on discovering who I am outside of swimming.”
The 24-year-old from London, Ont., earned a complete set of medals in Tokyo after helping relay teams to silver and bronze medals.
Mac Neil’s five gold medals at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, were the most by a Canadian athlete at a single Pan Am Games.
She was fifth in butterfly and was a member of two women’s relay teams that finished fourth at the recent Olympic Games in Paris.
“Anyone who I crossed paths with never, ever told me I couldn’t achieve my goal of going to the Olympics,” Mac Neil wrote. “It’s still surreal to be able to say I’m a two-time Olympian.”
She completed her master’s degree in sport management at Louisiana State University this year.
Born in China and adopted by Dr. Susan McNair and Dr. Edward MacNeil, Mac Neil’s mother wanted her to take swimming lessons for safety reasons because of the family’s backyard pool.
Mac Neil’s 2017 diagnosis of sport-induced asthma — which can be triggered by the swimming staples of heat and chlorine — forced a switch from longer distances to sprints.
Mac Neil became Canada’s first world champion in the women’s 100-metre butterfly two years later.
The nearsighted Mac Neil, who doesn’t wear contacts or prescription goggles, has seen multiple times a meme of her squinting hard at the scoreboard in Tokyo as she tried to decipher her result.
“I like to think it helps because I can’t see where other people are and I’m able to focus on my own race,” Mac Neil said before the Olympic Games in Paris. “That was definitely the case in Tokyo.
“I got that meme sent to me at least three times in January even though it’s been three years since.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 26, 2024.
NYON, Switzerland (AP) — Serbia and Albania are set to co-host the men’s Under-21 European Championship in 2027 in a soccer project that aims to overcome political tensions.
UEFA said Thursday only the Serbia-Albania bid met a deadline this week to file detailed tournament plans. Belgium and Turkey had declared interest earlier in the bidding process scheduled to be decided at a Dec. 16 meeting of the UEFA executive committee.
The Serbian and Albanian soccer federations teamed up in May to plan organization of the 16-team tournament played every two years that needs eight stadiums to host 31 games.
Albania soccer federation leader Armand Duka, who is a UEFA vice president, told The Associated Press in May that “it’s a 100% football project” with “a very good political message that we can get across.”
Weeks later at the men’s European Championship held in Germany, historic tensions between the Balkan countries — which in soccer included a notorious drone incident at a Serbia-Albania game in 2014 — played out at separate games involving their senior teams.
An Albania player was banned for games by UEFA for using a megaphone to join fans in nationalist chants, including targeting Serbia, after a Euro 2024 game against Croatia. Fans of Albania and Croatia earlier joined in anti-Serb chants, leading UEFA to impose fines for discrimination.
UEFA also fined both the Albanian and Serbian federations in separate incidents at Euro 2024 for fans displaying politically motivated banners about neighboring Kosovo.
After historic tensions were heightened by the 1990s Balkans conflicts, in 2008 majority ethnic Albanians in Kosovo declared independence for the former Serbian province. Serbia refuses to recognize that independence and considers Kosovo the cradle of its statehood.
An Albanian fans group daubed red paint on the federation offices in May when the cooperation with Serbian soccer for the Under-21 Euros was announced.
“We did have a few negative reactions from fans, mainly, and some interest groups,” Duka said then, “but not from the Albania government.”
UEFA has shown broad support for Serbia and Albania under its president, Aleksander Ceferin, who is from Slovenia.
The next annual congress of UEFA’s 55 national federations is in the Serbian capital Belgrade on April 3, and an executive committee meeting in September 2025 will be held in Tirana, Albania.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia’s mayor has revealed the terms of the deal negotiated with the city’s pro basketball team for a new $1.3 billion arena downtown.
The agreement reached earlier this month calls for the Philadelphia 76ers to finance the entire project, with no city funding involved. There is, however, a provision that would let the NBA team make annual payments in lieu of taxes averaging $6 million per year. The agreement also calls for a $50 million investment in businesses, neighboring communities and the city’s schools to blunt the project’s impact, Mayor Cherelle Parker said during a news conference Wednesday night.
“I truly am proud having made this decision and negotiated an agreement that will definitely ensure that our Sixers are staying home right here in Philadelphia, where they should be,” Parker said.
City officials also released drafts of the nine bills and two resolutions needed to authorize the project, including measures that allow the city to acquire the arena property and change zoning rules. Parker said her administration would hold a series of town halls in the coming months where residents could discuss concerns about the proposal.
Team owners say their planned “76 Place” project would improve a struggling retail corridor near City Hall and capitalize on the city’s public transit. They also have vowed not to renew the lease on their current space, a circa 1996 arena in the city’s South Philadelphia sports complex, when their lease runs out in 2031.
The proposal has drawn significant opposition from activists in the city’s Chinatown area, who fear it would disrupt or displace residents and businesses. They say the city has ignored concerns that the project will increase vehicle traffic in their pedestrian-friendly neighborhood and force vulnerable residents — older people, low-income families and new immigrants — to move out. Parker on Wednesday renewed her pledge to preserve the area, which is just over a block from the proposed arena site.
If ultimately approved by the City Council, demolition work in the area would begin in 2026 with construction starting two years later. Officials hope to open the arena in time for the 76ers’ 2031-32 season.
