Canada's chomping at the bit to get going
Posted on Wed, Dec. 22, 2004
By Tim Campbell
Winnipeg Free Press
WINNIPEG - It's still 13 days until any team will have a chance to play for the gold medal at the World Junior Hockey Championship, but Team Canada set a definite tone with its first exhibition game Monday night.
A 6-0 victory over Team Finland put the bar at quite a level for a first outing together.
"We wanted to come in and play our game," Team Canada's Dion Phaneuf said about Monday's victory. "That's what we did. They're a team that's in our pool and we wanted to send a message. Right from Day 1 at camp we wanted to come in and be a tough team to play against and I feel that's what we were (Monday night).
"That's where the bar is set for us now. Anything less than that is unacceptable. We know that."
After Tuesday's practice at MTS Centre, where they will play Team Switzerland tonight, Canadian players and head coach Brent Sutter expressed no interest in a cruise-control kind of approach until the WJHC's medal round in Grand Forks.
"(Monday) was a good place to start," said defenceman Shawn Belle. "Every day, we've said as a team, we want to get better and improve as a team. We set the bar and we expect to top that."
Captain Michael Richards of Kenora said that work continues on Team Canada's game and that Monday's domination of the Finns will be an important reference point in days to come.
"I think that's where we want it," Richards said. "We don't want to go out there thinking we can just stay the same or just slosh around the ice for 60 minutes. We went out there (Monday) and really took it to them and really gave us something to shoot for every night."
Canada, after three silver medals in a row at the World Junior, begins the tournament Saturday afternoon against Slovakia. Sutter, when he started to talk about areas in which his team might continue to improve, wound up reciting a longer list of positive items from Monday's game.
"The way we played (Monday) night, I thought we played well but at the same time, you can say it's the bar and we have to build off that," Sutter began.
"Still, we need to work on being better in certain areas. But all in all, our intensity and our commitment to team play, how we drove to the net, protected pucks, well, we only gave up 10 shots and we want to be a solid team that plays well without the puck and yet we want to make things happen when we have it.
"We want to be a puck-possession team and to do that, you have to win faceoffs and I thought we did a good job of that (Monday), too."
Team Canada has 12 returning players to this year's squad - Phaneuf, Belle and Richards among them - all of whom have strong memories of the disappointment after last year's gold-medal game loss to the U.S. in Helsinki.
The dynamic dozen is the core of an experienced, forceful-looking team for this year's tournament, one that appears to be very focused at this stage.
"I think everybody's just ready to go," Belle said. "We don't like battling against each other that much. Everybody's just chomping at the bit here."
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
