2008 World Junior Hockey Championship

Tourny will take place in the Czech Republic this year and set to start on December 26th - "Boxing Day".

The Groups are:

USA, Russia, Finland, Kazakhstan and Switzerland.

Canada, Sweden, Czech Rep., Slovakia and Denmark.

 

Bob MacKenzie blog from TSN, this is pre-release info. on the Canada roster:

http://www.tsn.ca/blogs/mckenzie/?id=224208

When last we left you on the subject of Canada's national junior team, the Super Series against Russia had just ended and conventional wisdom was that it would be difficult for any significant number of players not on that team to make it to Team Canada's roster for the World Junior Championship.

My, how things have changed.

Hockey Canada will announce tomorrow its list of invitees to the final national junior team evaluation camp, which opens Dec. 10 in Calgary, and there's a lot more uncertainty, in large part because of the number of underage juniors currently playing in the NHL.

It is probable, if not highly likely, that none of the six junior-eligible Canadians playing in the NHL will be made available to Team Canada. In fact, four of them have already been ruled out.

No one expected for a moment that Chicago would release Jonathan Toews or Pittsburgh would let go Jordan Staal, but Hockey Canada asked, just to be sure, and got the predictable response.

No chance.

But the Boston Bruins have already indicated to Hockey Canada that Milan Lucic, who played extremely well in the Super Series, will not be available, as did the Minnesota Wild with forward James Sheppard, who wasn't on the Super Series roster but was anticipated as likely to be on Team Canada if available.

That leaves Sam Gagner of the Edmonton Oilers and David Perron of the St. Louis Blues – both of whom excelled in the Super Series and would be locks to be on the world junior team – as the only two possibilities. But they are likely longshots now.

The Oilers and Blues both appear to be learning towards keeping Gagner and Perron on the NHL teams rosters, but a final decision may not be made until later in the week.

If so, between Gagner, Perron and Lucic, three roster spots that were spoken for are now up for grabs....

 

Canada announces their selection camp roster:

http://www.tsn.ca/canadian_hockey/news_story/?ID=224251&hubname=canadian_hockey

Hockey Canada has announced the list of 37 players that will take part in Canada's National Junior Selection Camp - but the six junior-aged NHLers are not on the list.

Jonathan Toews (Chicago), Jordan Staal (Pittsburgh), Milan Lucic (Boston), and James Sheppard (Minnesota) will all remain with their respective NHL clubs; the Blues and the Oilers have yet to make a decision on David Perron and Sam Gagner.

"We're going to move forward looking at not having any of them," said Hockey Canada president Bob Nicholson. "If one or two of those players were made available to us before the 10th, we'd certainly invite them to camp, but (coach) Craig Hartsburg and the group are preparing right now without any NHL players."

Others noticeably absent from the list include forward Logan Couture, and defencemen Alex Pietrangelo and Colton Teubert.

The lack of NHLers doesn't mean that the team will be devoid of star power. Projected 2008 number #1 overall draft pick Steve Stamkos of the Sarnia Sting, John Tavares of the Oshawa Generals and Kyle Turris, selected by the Phoenix Coyotes with the third overall pick in 2007, have all been invited to participate...

Camp Roster:

http://www.tsn.ca/world_jrs/feature/?fid=11297

 

U.S. announces WJHC team

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=224423&hubname=

COLORADO SPRING, Colo. - James vanRiemsdyk, the No. 2 pick in the NHL draft, headlines the U.S. team for the world junior hockey championship later this month in the Czech Republic....

The U.S. team includes eight players - seven forwards and one defencemen - returning from the team that lost in a shootout to Canada in the semifinal of the 2007 world junior championship in Sweden and settled for a bronze medal.

"The good news for USA Hockey is our players go in expecting to be in the final," coach John Hynes said Wednesday in a conference call. "We've been in the semis the last five years and we've lost some really tight hockey games."

The U.S. last won the world junior title in 2004.

The Canadian Hockey League players on the team are Plymouth Whalers goaltender Jeremy Smith and defencemen Jonathon Blum of the Vancouver Giants, Kevin Montgomery of the London Knights and Bobby Sanguinetti of the Brampton Battalion.

Blum leads all Western Hockey League defencemen in points with seven goals and 26 assists.

The seven first-round NHL draft picks on the team are: vanRiemsdyk (Philadelphia), Sanguinetti (New York Rangers), Blum (Nashville), forwards Kyle Okposo (New York Islanders) and Max Pacioretty (Montreal) and defencemen Ian Cole (St. Louis) and Chris Summers (Phoenix)...

 

Article on the final cuts to Canadian Junior Team ("Team Canada")

http://www.tsn.ca/world_jrs/news_story/?ID=225082&hubname=world_jrs

Hockey Canada has made its cuts for the final team at the World Junior Hockey Championship, with forward Angelo Esposito and goaltender Leland Irving among the prominent players sent home.

Esposito's failure to make the club for a third straight December marks the end of a tough year for the Quebec Remparts centre.

In June, his stock plummeted at the 2007 NHL Draft as the high-scoring centre was passed over by 19 teams before being taken by the Pittsburgh Penguins. Esposito, who led his Remparts junior team to the Memorial Cup championship at age 17 in 2006, was the top-rated North American prospect by the NHL's scouting bureau as late as February. Going into the draft, he was No. 8...

<snip>

Team Canada Bios

Forwards - http://www.tsn.ca/world_jrs/feature/?fid=11274&hubname=

Goalies and Defence - http://www.tsn.ca/world_jrs/feature/?fid=11296&hubname=

 

Canada defeated the Red Bull Salzburg U20's today 5-0 in their first pre-tourny exhibition match.

Here is the TSN homepage for the World Jr's.

http://www.tsn.ca/world_jrs/

Rosters of all the participating teams (as they're released) can be found on the right hand column, near the bottom of the page, under the heading "The World".

 

Canada defeat Slovakia 6-1 and Finland 4-2 in exhibition games prior to the World Jr.'s

 

Thanks studzup, but i haven't updated this in about a week! I wasn't even sure anyone was reading this thread....to help everyone catch up here are the results and standings leading up to the last day of group games.

And yeah, kind of weird that they would cfocus on Canada instead of a big win for the US over the cold war rival Russians. Guess the 20 game win streak being snapped for Canada had something to do with it...

http://www.tsn.ca/world_jrs/feature/?fid=445

Date Match # Time (ET) Matchup Venue Result
1 Wed, Dec. 26 10am Sweden vs Slovakia Pardubice Arena 4 - 3
2 Wed, Dec. 26 10am USA vs Kazakhstan Tipsport Arena 5 - 1
3 Wed, Dec. 26 2pm Czech Republic vs Canada Pardubice Arena 0 - 3
4 Wed, Dec. 26 2pm Finland vs Russia Tipsport Arena 4 - 7
5 Thurs, Dec. 27 10am Slovakia vs Canada Pardubice Arena 0 - 2
6 Thurs, Dec. 27 10am Kazakhstan vs Russia Tipsport Arena 4 - 5
7 Thurs, Dec. 27 2pm Czech Republic vs Denmark Pardubice Arena 5 - 2
8 Thurs, Dec. 27 2pm Finland vs Switzerland Tipsport Arena 4 - 3 (SO)
9 Fri, Dec. 28 12pm Denmark vs Sweden Pardubice Arena 1 - 10
10 Fri, Dec. 28 12pm Switzerland vs USA Tipsport Arena 2 - 4
11 Sat, Dec. 29 10am Slovakia vs Czech Republic Pardubice Arena 2 - 5
12 Sat, Dec. 29 10am Kazakhstan vs Finland Tipsport Arena 0 - 5
13 Sat, Dec. 29 2pm Canada vs Sweden Pardubice Arena 3 - 4
14 Sat, Dec. 29 2pm Russia vs USA Tipsport Arena 2 - 3
15 Sun, Dec. 30 12pm Denmark vs Slovakia Pardubice Arena 3 - 4
16 Sun, Dec. 30 12pm Switzerland vs Kazakhstan Tipsport Arena 1 - 3
17 Mon, Dec. 31 8am Sweden vs Czech Republic Pardubice Arena -
18 Mon, Dec. 31 8am Russia vs Switzerland Tipsport Arena -
19 Mon, Dec. 31 12pm Canada vs Denmark Pardubice Arena -
20 Mon, Dec. 31 12am USA vs Finland Tipsport Arena -

Standings:

http://www.tsn.ca/world_jrs/feature/?fid=984

Group A

W OTW OTL L GF GA PTS
Sweden 3 0 0 0 18 7 9
Canada 2 0 0 1 8 4 6
Czech Republic 2 0 0 1 10 7 6
Slovakia 1 0 0 3 9 14 3
Denmark 0 0 0 3 6 19 0


Group B

W OTW OTL L GF GA PTS
United States 3 0 0 0 12 5 9
Russia 2 0 0 1 14 11 6
Finland 1 1 0 1 13 10 5
Kazakhstan 1 0 0 3 8 16 3
Switzerland 0 0 1 2 6 11 1

The top team in each group will get a bye to the Semi's. The 1/4's include 2 vs. 3 from each group in a crossover.

 

The 1/4's are tomorrow and the matchups are as follows:

Canada (A2) vs. Finland (B3) 9:30am ET (Live on TSN and TSN Broadband)
Russia (B2) vs. Czech Rep. (A3) 2pm ET

In the Semi's, the United States will face the winner of Canada-Finland while Sweden will face the Russia-Czech winner.

If anyone outside Canada is interested in watching Canada-Finland tomorrow it is being streamed on the TSN website free of charge. Here's the link:

http://www.tsn.ca/

 

You're welcome! Finland is leading 1-0 on a fake dump-in turned long shot on goal that fooled Canadas' goalie (Steve Mason).

 

Canada comes back to win 4-2 over Finland and will face the US on Friday.

Mason gave up the second goal on a deflection off his pad with the shooter at the end boards. He's not inspiring confidence so I think we need to go with Jonathan Bernier against the US. I didn't think Bernier deserved to be dropped as the #1 in the first place, i wouldn't blame him entirely for what happened against Sweden. I think of how he played in the SuperSeries in the summer against the Russians, at winning a pro job at the start of the NHL season and then stoning the Czechs big time in the tourny opener. If we have Bernier in net on Friday, we have a good shot at winning. If Mason is in, i'm not so sure.

The other 1/4 starts at 2pm and i think can be seen on TSN.ca (and TSN in Canada). Czech Rep.-Russia in front of a partisan Czech crowd in Pardubice.

 

Semi's:
Sweden 2-1 Russia (OT)
Canada 4-1 USA

Canada and Sweden will have a rematch in the Gold Medal game on Sunday. US plays Russia for the Bronze.

 

Russia win the Bronze with a 4-2 win over an uninspired USA side.

Gold Medal match has just started...

 

3-2 Canada defeats Sweden in OT!

4 Junior titles in a row now for Canada

 

Here's the Gold medal game recap:

http://www.tsn.ca/world_jrs/news_story/?ID=226550&hubname=