Canada falls on New Year’s Eve, wants rematch with U.S.

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In the hours leading into the popping of champagne bottles, the singing of Auld Lang Syne and whatever’s left of Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve, Canada ushered in 2025 on a sour note at the world junior hockey championship.

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It’s not a feud like the Hatfields and McCoys or even the Russia-Canada hockey hatred that got our blood boiling so many years ago, but any time it’s Canada vs. the United States in pretty well anything, the let’s-kick-their-asses meter gets cranked up.

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With plenty of fan noise going against them, the Americans beat the Canadians 4-1 Tuesday night.

In a physical game, the Canadian aggressiveness cost them. Seven times, the U.S. had the man-advantage with Canada serving penalties; three times they scored. That was the difference.

You could question some of the penalties – maybe theatrics is part of the American game plan.

But it’s hard to knock a U.S. team that won the championship a year ago and is on track to do it again … unless.

Yeah, there’s an unless here.

The Canadians want another crack at their rivals.

“We want to play those guys again and get some revenge,” Canadian captain Brayden Yager said.

“I’m sure we’ll be going at them again sometime in this tournament if we want to win a gold medal,” Canadian defenceman Sam Dickinson said. “We’ll get back to the level we know we can play at.”

Because it was the Americans they were lined up against, it was obvious the Canadian players had a little extra jump.

“You could feel the crowd get into it,” Yager said. “Whenever we see the USA jersey, we want to play with a little extra juice and we always want to beat them.”

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“It’s a big rivalry,” Dickinson said. “Anytime you go against one of the big nations in this tournament, it adds a little more. But you can’t buy too much into it. Don’t get too worried about who you’re playing against, just go out there and play hockey.

“It was tight the whole way through. When you get into a game like that, you battle for every inch. You have to fight for those inches if you want to win the game.”

To get to a gold-medal showdown, Canada first needs to beat Czechia Thursday at Canadian Tire Centre (7:30 p.m.). Then, they’ll need to win a semi-final game. Then, if they get past those two tests, it’s go for gold.

It’s a big ask.

“There are no easy games now, you’re getting into sudden-death games,” Canadian coach Dave Cameron said. “This is game on, Game 7, you’d better have your A-game.

“It’s pressure, but it’s that way for everybody right now. That’s what make this tournament exciting, that’s what makes this tournament so hard to win.”

“That’s the tournament,” Yager said. “Regardless what place we finished in the pool, we have to win three straight games to win a gold medal. The last four games are in the past. We’ll focus on the next game, then the one after that.”

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Canada will need to be more disciplined; it’s tough to beat such a highly skilled team when you’re trying to do it with one less player on the ice.

“When there’s an accumulation of penalties, you’d want to think they’re all clear-cut penalties,” Cameron said. “But It’s on us, we put ourselves in that position. Don’t let the referees get involved.”

“A penalty is a penalty,” Dickinson, who was sitting in the box when the U.S. scored its first goal, said. “Calls are made. I’m not going to lose sleep over it.”

The Canadians were very good at 5-on-5 hockey Tuesday, good enough to win. They went toe-to-toe with the Americans. But you have to put the puck in the net.

At times, they got too fancy; passes into the middle of the ice were too often intercepted or knocked away.

And the lack of discipline was a dagger to their hopes.

But there will be another day; in this case, another day puts the Canadian kids vs. Czechia, the team that knocked them off in the quarter-finals a year ago. It’s not like Canada needs a nudge, but it can’t be a bad thing to play the team that sent you home the year before.

“We feel we can beat anybody here,” Cameron said. “But the time for talking is done. Everybody that’s moving forward feels they have a realistic chance to win … and they should. Now you have to do the work.”

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