Asunto: U18 Canada National Team

This game is not good for my poor little heart!

In what was looking very much like a repeat of the first game, we were up 2-1 in the last minute of play. A play starts where they took their goalie out and are attacking with 30 seconds to go. Very much like last game. However, this time, our outstanding goalie, Jonathan Banks, holds strong!

Impressive game for us canadian boys. Latvia was the Word champions in the U18 category last season.

Let's see how far we can go!

Congrats on the big win in a tight goaltenders duel!!
Great win !!

In another note, the GM of Garfield HC, after 21 days of inactivity, showed up on the 23rd, saved his team and started a training camp haha.

Good news that we haven't lost another solid team. Let's hope he develops his youngsters well.

I'll take that as a major plus !!!
Every good team that folds makes it that much more difficult for those who spend time managing the national teams to put a strong team on the ice for the world championships. Existing players often go to teams where their training can continue uninterupted. They may just become harder to track if they leave the country. The real loss is in the loss of a high level academy that can produce good players for the future.

Thanks to a 4 goals performance by Brisebois along with another solid outing by our goaltender Jonathan Banks, Canada has defeated Belarus by a score of 6-4.

We complete the preliminary round at the top of our group and are now looking forward to the qualifying rounds with optimism.

Not 6-4.... 6-1.

Great game.
Looks like that win coupled with a 3-2 SO victory by the Czechs over Latvia puts Belarus in last place.

Another 6-1 win, against Austria this time, as we roll on in the tournament.

Great play by Anton Herman at both ends of the ice has lead us forward in this game.

We are optimistic about our chances against Germany tomorrow. A win would put us in a great position moving forward.

A slightly disappointing 5-2 loss today against a strong Germany team. We had home ice, but a quick goal in the first minute by Germany indicated what was to come. The first 20 was not pretty. A 0-4 start was too much to overcome in a game where seemingly everything went wrong at the wrong time.

Tomorrow is another big game to a strong Slovak team on their turf. Moving on!

Another loss to end the qualifying round. We knew Slovakia was a tough matchup, but I can't help being disappointed since we nailed the tactics. It wasn't enough. We see that, in spite of our solid results so far, at this point, Canada is not a power house at this level. We will keep working diligently to raise the talent level throughout Canada.

In the meantime, we still make the playoff thanks to our early successes. We will face a strong Hungary team in the first round of the playoffs. We promise to do everything in our power to keep the team alive for another game.

BTW, this is Canada's first participation in the playoffs since S24 (which was an amazing run to the finals). We are very proud of this accomplishment.

That's it for us this year boys and girls. We came close, really close.

We were leading 2-0 after 2 periods. And played the 3rd on the right tactical matchup, but it didn't stop them from tying the game. We then got all the way to the SO where we scored once, but they scored twice.

It is a shame to lose when it's so close, but I am encouraged by our level of competition in this tournament. Afterall, this was only Canada's 2nd playoff participation in the U18 top division.

We learned a lot in this season's WCs. Hopefully you will all trust us again for next season's edition. Trader Phil and I already have a few changes in mind to provide what we feel will be a stronger tactical advantage in the coming season.

Either way, it has been a pleasure to serve for Canada this season.

Thanks to all.

Excellent effort, and a damn shame to go out in a shootout! Nice work.

About players development. Goalie is a position of great weakness overall for our country. With the draft tonight, I encourage all of you to use some picks on goalies if you don't have a specific target. The more potential players we get, the more likely we will find a few good ones.

The dang draft only has 2 As I could find and plethora of Bs, which typically don't ever make it to the NT teams because they, well, suck. And I pick 7th or 8th. At least they're 5/6s so I may still get them if the other folks didn't scout that far xD