Quarterfinal loss to Czechia shocking, but Canada will get over it

Even a juggernaut can have a bad tournament, and that's exactly what happened to Canada in the 2024 World Junior Championship.

Macklin Celebrini, a 17-year-old who plays at Boston University, was Canada’s top offensive producer, but he didn’t have near enough help. (Photo by Steven Ellis)

It’s an enormous shock when Canada loses in the World Junior Championship in any year in any game. And that’s as it should be. Because when it comes to hockey at any level, Canada should never, ever be portrayed as plucky underdog. The reality is that it is a global behemoth that has more players, indoor rinks and volunteers than any other country in the world, by a lot. Its national governing body is awash in money and it is awarded the tournament almost every other year, which not only adds to its coffers, but gives it an incredible advantage.

There is not a single tournament at any level where Canada should not go in as a prohibitive favourite. For example, Canada has in excess of 1,300 more indoor rinks than the United States does. Canada has 513,674 players registered, 2,860 indoor rinks and 5,000 outdoor rinks. Its opponent in the quarterfinal of the WJC has 34,341 players, 183 indoor rinks and 13 outdoor rinks. When you really think about the importance this country puts on the game, it’s shocking that it would ever lose to any country in any game at any level. Gee, it’s almost as though the emphasis on elitism in the game is having an adverse effect…on the elite levels of the game.

Hockey Canada asks for and cashes in on the pressure it imposes on these young people and basks in it when its teams wins, so it simply cannot use the “they’re only kids” response when they lose. If they’re only kids, then let’s treat them as such. And please, no whining about how Canada did not have access to its best teenaged players because they were playing in the NHL. Most years, Canada could go five or six deep with its teams and still beat most of its opponents.

So, yeah, a 3-2 loss to Czechia in the quarterfinal of the tournament is something of a shock. But those in this country who proclaim to live and die by this event, then never bother to show up at a junior game in their own cities, will get over it. It’s coming back to Canada next year and we’ll wind it all up again. This time, the kids – who don’t receive a penny from any of this - will have full arenas of people paying NHL prices cheering them on.

And that team will probably be better than this year’s iteration of Team Canada, which was decidedly middling. But that’s how it goes sometimes. Even a behemoth sometimes doesn’t have enough offensive firepower. Sometimes it leaves players off the roster that leave people scratching their heads. (In the two games during selection camp, coach Alan Letang made it clear he wasn’t terribly impressed with Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Easton Cowan, all the while singing the praises of Cowan’s London Knights teammate and Philadelphia Flyers prospect Denver Barkey. Then they went ahead and took Easton over Barkey. Easton was, well, unimpressive.) Sometimes the coaching staff deploys the players it has in a way that leaves people scratching their heads even more. Nobody ever brings that up when Canada wins, but it’s natural to have the second-guessers out in full force when they fail to medal.

And there are times when the breaks go against you. In the Canada loss to Czechia, the puck deflected off the stick of a defenceman whose father represented the Czech Republic in international competition before settling in Canada after his NHL career ended. Even when you’re the favourite, there’s often a paper-thin line between jubilation and humiliation in this tournament. Some of the same Czech players who celebrated wildly after their win against Canada had to stand on the blueline and watch Canada receive their gold medals after an overtime loss in the final game in 2023.

Canada needed an overtime goal on home ice from Connor Bedard over Slovakia in the quarterfinal to avoid the same fate just last year. In the year prior, again on home ice, only a puck batted out of the air on the goal line by Mason McTavish in overtime, then a goal by Kent Johnson, separated gold from silver for Canada against Finland. If Canada had lost that game, there would have been a huge dialogue about how McTavish got caught up ice, then blew a tire behind the net that led to Finland’s glorious opportunity. Instead, because he managed to miraculously knock the puck out of the air, then corral it along the goal line, McTavish was a national hero.

Like we said, a very fine line.

At times like this, I’m reminded of what former USA Hockey executive Art Berglund, who was born in Fort Frances, Ont., had to say about the game. “Canada gave the world this wonderful game,” he said, “but the rest of the world plays it, too.”

So, you have to give their opponents some credit here, too. The truth is, this Canadian roster was not a terribly strong one and probably would have lost later in the tournament to the far superior Americans or Swedes. Or maybe not. Perhaps that Canadian resilience and luck would have once again prevailed. But it was a team, as evidenced by its final three games, that couldn’t come up with enough goal scoring at crucial times. In those games, Canada scored just seven non-empty-net goals and one of those games was against Germany. Against this level of competition with the huge momentum swings that occur in this tournament, that simply isn’t good enough.

The highly respected Craig Button of TSN spoke after the game about Canada’s chances for 2025, when the tournament will be held in Ottawa. “I think Canada is going to have a very, very strong team,” Button said. “I think Canada goes into the tournament in 2025 in Ottawa as one of the serious favourites, no question about it.”

Of course they will, because they always do. More often than not, Canada fulfills its destiny. Other times, as was the case in 2024, it is simply not good enough. The same country that once relied on grit and goaltending has been matched in the former and badly surpassed in the latter. USA is coming on. Its investment in its national team development program, something Hockey Canada would never do because it would take the best young players out of major junior hockey, continues to produce results.

But Button is right. Canada will be right there in 2025. And the year after and the one after that.