Allsports Thought It was the Best Hockey Game He Had Seen in a While

If you have been searching the web for sports news or watching sports on television over the holiday, you will know that the final is set for Mondays World Junior Championship with Canada playing Sweden for the second year in a row.
The bubble finally burst for Jaroslav Janus and his Slovakian mates. Sweden won 5-3.

The most entertaining game was the Canada/Russia tilt. The game was a seesaw battle, back and forth. Canada scoring first and Russia getting it back moments later. Russia got into some penalty trouble in the second period but Canada could not capitalize, this was the low point in the game as play was quite ragged with many missed passes.

The score was tied at 4-4 when Russia got its first lead of the game with just over two minutes to go.

The Canadians threw everything at the Russians, pulling their goaltender for an extra attacker.But it looked like they would hold on and Canada would be playing for Bronze.

Then, with 41 seconds left in the game one of the Russian players made a very foolish and selfish mistake.

Instead of skating the puck across the center line, he shot it, trying to score from his own side of center. The Russians were charged with icing the puck and the face off came back into the Russian zone.

Pat Quinn left Dustin Tokarski on the bench and stayed with six attackers. Russia was never able to clear the puck as Canada kept them hemmed in; then, with 5.4 seconds left on the clock, Jordan (nice hands) Eberle, grabbed a loose puck after a Russian shot block and flipped a backhand into the top of the net to tie the score at fives.

I would hate to be the Russian kid that iced the puck after the game.

The ensuing 10 minute overtime saw some chances on both sides but in the end settled nothing. So, as per IIHF rules, the teams went to a shoot out. Jordan Eberle and John Tavares both scored for Canada in the shootout, while goalie Dustin Tokarski stopped both Russian shots.

“No Guts No Glory”

-Walt Webb