1994: Balanced Attack Nets Gold
In 1994, Canada had a low-scoring, well balanced attack, and it was more than enough to lead them to their second straight gold medal.
Led by tournament leading scoring Martin Gendron (yeah I know, I don't know him either) and solid goaltending from Jamie Storr and a young man who at that time was still going my Emmanuel Fernandez, who now tends net in Boston, Canada cruised to a 6-0-1 record at the tournament.
Although a lot of players on this team were the hard working, tight checking type who weren't big names, there were some players who left this team to go onto pretty big things in the National Hockey League.
There were nine first round draft picks on the team, including defenseman Bryan McCabe and Brendan Witt, as well as forwards like Jason Allison, Anson Carter, and Mike Peca.
1993: First of Five
After an embarrassing showing in 1992, Canada roared back in '93, and challenged the high powered Swedes for the gold in the tournament.
Canada won six of their seven games, which back in the era where it wasn't a knockout tournament but a points total, was just enough.
It wasn't easy however. They tied Sweden in the standings, but won the head-to-head match-up 3-2 in a World Junior classic to take the tie breaker.
Sweden was led by Peter Forsberg and linemates Markus Naslund, and Niklas Sundstrom. Forsberg set a world junior record with 31 points in seven games. Naslund also set the record with 13 goals (which I think has since been broken.)
Canada outlasted Sweden 3-2 on the strength of its goaltending. Manny Legace went 6-0-0 and sported a 1.67 save percentage to go with it.
Canada had some future NHL players on the team that year that included defenseman Chris Pronger, Mike Rathje, Jason Smith, and Adrian Aucoin.
Up front they were led by Paul Kariya and Martin Lapointe. The foreard corps also included the likes of Dean McAmmond, Rob Niedermayer, Chris Gratton, and again Alexandre Daigle.
1991: The Big E's Big Moment
In 1990, Canada and the world got a glimpse of what Eric Lindros was capable of. One year later, with more ice time and more confidence, Lindros exploded for 17 points in seven games as Canada went 5-1-1 en route to another gold medal.
Aside from Lindros, future NHL'ers Mike Sillinger, Kris Draper, Scott Thornton, and Brad May led another gritty balanced attack.
On defense there wasn't too much of a household name to be found save for Patrice Brisebois, although the tournament did allow Canada to see the early stages of what turned out to be a great career for Scott Niedermayer.
Trevor Kidd, who was a junior hockey sensation, and Felix Potvin shared net duties for Team Canada.
It's the countdown to the 2009 World Junior Hockey Championships! It all stars on Dec. 26 live from Ottawa, Ontario.
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