Standings
Schedule/Results
Statistics
Your Call
World Jrs. on TSN
FANTASY SPORTS
STORE
SHOWS
COLUMNISTS
SERVICES
Site Map »
HOME : World Jrs : News Story
Canada advances to gold medal game
Canadian Press
1/3/2003
HALIFAX (CP) - Canada and Russian will meet in the final of the world junior hockey championship for a second straight year.
Canada advanced to Sunday's championship game (TSN, 7:10 p.m. EST) with a 3-2 win over the United States in Friday's semifinal. Russia downed Finland 4-1 in an earlier semifinal.
Canada and Russia met last year in the title match in Pardubice, Czech Republic, where Russia was a 5-4 winner.
Related Info
Russians advance to gold medal game
QOD: Who looks like they're NHL material?
Defenceman Jeff Woywitka scored the winner at 11:40 of the third period. Nathan Paetsch and Pierre-Marc Bouchard also scored for Canada.
Eric Nystrom and Ryan Kesler replied for the United States.
The sold-out Halifax Metro Centre made a thunderous din for a full four minutes before the teams took to the ice. When the Canadians stepped on the ice first, the noise level drowned out the public address system.
As the teams lined up on the blue-lines for the post-game ceremony, the spectators chanted ``We want gold!''
U.S. goaltender Rob Goepfert threatened to steal the game as Canada outshot the U.S. 42-15.
Matt Stajan fed a pass from the backboards between the legs of an American defenceman to Woywitka skating in from the blue-line and he finally solved Goepfert, a Pittsburgh Penguins' draft pick.
Canada went into the third period facing 3½ minutes of a two-man disadvantage after Swiss referee Danny Kurmann sent defenceman Brendan Bell, Paetsch and Steve Eminger to the penalty box at the end of the second.
Kesler banged in a rebound to tie the game 2-2 at 1:06 of the third when Canada allowed its first power-play goal of the tournament.
Pierre-Alex Parenteau sent a goal-mouth pass across to a waiting Bouchard during a power-play in the second period to give Canada a 2-1 lead at 17:26.
The Americans forechecked hard and when Canada broke down in the defensive zone during a power-play, Nystrom pounced and banged in his own rebound at 9:12 to tie the game 1-1 with a short-handed goal.
Canada opened the scoring when Kyle Wellwood won a draw in the offensive zone and sent the puck back to Paetsch, whose shot through traffic fooled Goepfert at 4:27.
A U.S. goal was waived off at 7:17 of the first when Kurmann ruled it was knocked in with a high stick.
The Canadian had the more experienced lineup as the Americans had 10 players who were 18 or younger compared with Canada's four.
In the earlier semifinal, Yuri Trubachev, Alexander Perezhogin, Igor Grigorenko and Moncton Wildcats forward Evgeni Artyukhin, scored for Russia in front of 10,527.
Jesse Niinimaki, a first-round pick of the Edmonton Oilers, replied for Finland, who will play for a bronze medal for the second straight year.
In a relegation game, Sweden held off Belarus 5-4 in front of 6,370.
Belarus and Germany have been relegated to the second-tier world championship in 2004. Austria and Ukraine have won promotion.
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread
Facebook
Twitter