Sweden 6, Canada East 4 – Charles V. Keating Centre
· Victor Eklund scored twice as Sweden earned a 6-4 win in their only pre-tournament game.
· Vincent Gauthier (St-Zotique, QC/Valleyfield, LHJAAAQ), Jack Rimmer (Toronto, ON/Collingwood, OJHL), Dylan Edwards (Moncton, NB/Miramichi, MHL) and Andry Reist (Waterloo, ON/Cobourg, OJHL) scored for Canada East.
· Dawson Labre (Les Cèdres, QC/Smiths Falls, CCHL) and Sebastian Gatto (Leamington, ON/Leamington, OJHL) split the game and combined to make 31 saves.
United States 4, Canada West 1 – Rath Eastlink Community Centre
· The United States scored four unanswered goals to beat Canada West in their pre-tournament opener.
· Rylan Brown (Winnipeg, MB/Niverville, MJHL) scored the lone goal for Canada West.
· Eric Roest (Lethbridge, AB/Sherwood Park, AJHL) and Johnny Hicks (Kamloops, BC/Brooks, AJHL) split the game and combined to make 30 saves.
Next games – December 10
- Sweden vs. Canada West – 3:30 p.m. AT
- Slovakia vs. Canada East – 7:30 p.m. AT
Quotes:
“I thought it was a good effort, probably better than we expected for our first game. We certainly have to clean up some of our habits and smaller details, I know we can be better. There was a nervous excitement with the group to start but I feel as the game went on it kind of went away and we started playing harder. This game could have gone either way and we’re happy with the effort.”
- Canada East head coach Billy McGuigan (Summerside, PE/Summerside, MHL) on seeing his team in game action for the first time.
“We started a bit slow tonight, but I think that was expected. We got a couple nice goals and were right in it with them until the end. We have a good group in there and have some things to touch up, but I think we’re happy with what we saw tonight.”
- Rimmer on getting the nerves out of the system.
“It was a good sixty minutes, we just couldn’t find a way to get one to make it close. I thought the goals we gave up, we kind of handed to them, but that’s hockey. Good thing for us is that we have a good day of practice planned tomorrow and can get ready to start the tournament.”
- Canada West head coach Scott Barney (Oshawa, ON/Humboldt, SJHL) on the loss
TSN and RDS, the official broadcast partners of Hockey Canada will broadcast the gold medal game from the Rath Eastlink Community Centre in Truro; please check local listings for details.
All preliminary-round games are livestreamed at HockeyCanada.ca.
