Connor Bedard sees the reminder every time he’s back home.
His gold medal from the last world junior hockey championship — a tournament that was moved to the summer and almost didn’t happen because of COVID-19 — hangs in the 17-year-old phenom’s bedroom.
And the presumptive No. 1 pick at the 2023 NHL draft is eager for more.
“Feels like when you win it, it lasts 10 minutes,” Bedard said. “You want that again right away.”
Another opportunity is right around the corner.
Bedard headlines a star-studded Canadian roster that will be looking to secure the country’s 20th podium-topping performance at the event set to open Boxing Day in Halifax and Moncton, N.B.
Apart from the North Vancouver, B.C., product, already being compared to the likes of Connor McDavid and other franchise-altering talents, Canada boasts a trio of NHL players loaned to the national team in Shane Wright, Dylan Guenther and Brandt Clarke.
“World juniors are something that you grew up watching as a kid and dream playing in,” said Wright, a centre selected No. 4 overall by the Seattle Kraken at the 2021 draft. “A huge honour.”
“We don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves,” added Guenther, a forward with the Arizona Coyotes. “One last shot at winning a world junior championship is special.”
Bedard said Canada’s roster will feature “a bit of everything.”
“Whenever you’re assembling a team across Canada, it’s going to be pretty good,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of size, we’ve got speed, skill. It’s huge getting those [NHL] guys back.
“Those are all impact players in the best league in the world.”
Canada’s World Junior squad shows no mercy in rout of Slovakia
Josh Roy scored and added an assist as Canada defeated Slovakia 6-1 in World Junior pre-competition action Wednesday.
Adam Fantilli — also in the conversation at the top of the upcoming NHL draft — has been impressed with the roster top-to-bottom.
“The best players in the country in one spot,” he said. “Great to see what everybody can do.”
Canada opens the tournament Monday against Czechia, the country commonly known as the Czech Republic, as part of a group playing out of Halifax’s Scotiabank Centre that includes Sweden, Germany and Austria.
The other side of the bracket is set for Moncton’s Avenir Centre and will feature the United States, Finland, Switzerland, Slovakia and Latvia.
Like at the reimagined August event in Edmonton, Russia is banned due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine. The 2023 tournament was originally slated for the Russian cities of Novosibirsk and Omsk before being moved to North America.
Home-soil crowd, sky-high expectations
Canada, which sits as the favourite, also enters with the pressure of a home-soil crowd and sky-high expectations.
“A privilege,” said head coach Dennis Williams. “You want to be put in these positions. We have to make sure we have our players able to be play uncomfortable — being comfortable at being uncomfortable in those situations.”
Canadian winger Brennan Othmann said the group will be able to attack in a number of different ways.
“Our back end is mean and solid and tough, and our forwards are skilled and big and strong,” he said. “You’re going to get an unbelievable Canada team coming at you.”
“I see a lot of talent,” added Clarke, a Los Angeles Kings defenceman set for his first world juniors. “And there’s guys that can play lower in the lineup, can grind it out, can win puck battles that are really tough to play against.”
Hockey Canada director of player personnel Alan Millar said there’s no doubt skill was a focus in roster construction.
“But at the same time, we want to have heaviness throughout our lineup,” he said. “We want to play fast, we want to play hard, and we want to compete and put teams on their heels.”
The tournament also comes at a time where the sport’s national organization is undergoing significant change following a disastrous 2022 of ugly headlines related to its handling of sexual assault allegations and payouts to victims.
Hockey Canada has a new board of directors and should have a freshly minted CEO in the new year.
Documents reveal new details about alleged junior hockey sexual assault
Recently filed court documents lay out why police are seeking search warrants to further their investigation into five members of the 2018 World Junior hockey team they believe were involved in an alleged sexual assault of a woman in London, Ont. None of the police allegations have been tested in court and no charges have been laid.
The players and coaching staff at the world juniors have no connection to the scandals, but they’re still going to be wearing the logo — and know there will be a lot of scrutiny.
“We want to make sure we keep that focus on how we do things both on and off the ice,” Willliams said. “We want to minimize any distractions — whether it’s through the pressure or anything on the outside.
“Our guys are coming in excited, our guys are coming in determined.”
And gold — just like every other international tournament Canada enters — is on their mind.
“All the guys that are coming back really want that,” Bedard said of the country’s eight returning players from the summer.
“And for the guys that are new, it’s something that we want to give them.”
New Brunswick sets terms for players’ conduct during World Juniors
New Brunswick, co-host of the World Juniors, is putting direct financial pressure on Hockey Canada to keep its players from engaging in illegal or unethical conduct during the tournament, according to the province’s contract with the hockey organization.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
