Photo: Hockey Canada Images
2024 Junior A World Challenge – Dec. 9-15, 2024
Sweden 5, United States 3
Zeb Lindgren led the way with a goal and two assists for Sweden.
Arvid Drott chipped in a goal and an assist.
Ben Kevan scored twice for the United States.
Canada East 6, Canada West 1
Brett Arsenault (Charlottetown, PE/Summerside, MHL) led the offence with two goals and two assists for Canada East.
Zachary Deleau (La Prairie, QC/Valleyfield, LHJAAAQ) chipped in three assists.
Noah Tegelaar (Georgetown, ON/Collingwood, OJHL) stopped 39 of 40 shots.
Luke Lepper (Brandon, MB/Flin Flon, MJHL) scored the lone goal for Canada West.
Next Games – December 12
Canada East vs. Sweden – 3 p.m. MT/5 p.m. ET
Canada West vs. United States – 7:30 p.m. MT/9:30 p.m. ET
Quotes:
“It was crucial for us to bounce back after yesterday’s loss and get the three points. There’s things I liked in our game, but we still took too many penalties (nine) which takes a lot of energy out of you and you have a hard time generating much offence. Our goalie (Noah Tegelaar) was our best penalty killer because five-on-five we didn’t give them anything, but that much time in the penalty box can hurt you so we have to clean that up before we play Sweden on Thursday.”
Canada East head coach Bruce Richardson (Pincourt, QC/Valleyfield, LHJAAAQ) on his team’s bounce-back game.
“We had to bond pretty quickly as a team just coming together last week. We’re finally starting to come together like family, trust each other and we’re really trying to win for each other. Today we wanted to come out and show what we’re actually capable of and the team did a job of that, except for the penalties, but we’re fortunate to win and it’s a great team win.”
Tegelaar on the team’s performance.
“We know that we’re not a team that’s going to score five or six goals. We have to play better defensively, try to score two or three and win the game 3-1. I’ve been part of this before where we haven’t won in the round robin and then we’ve won the whole thing. We’re hoping that I can lean on some of that experience for the guys – and yes, it’s a different group – but we believe we’re better than what we have shown so far.”
Canada West head coach Mike Reagan (Flin Flon, MB/Flin Flon, MJHL) on a disappointing loss.
“Our first period was not very good, and I think the first 10 minutes of the second wasn’t great either. We were struggling in trying to keep up with them, but once we scored our first goal, we got a bit more confidence and things started to turn around. Some of our group has played together for a little while now – starting with the Hlinka Gretzky tournament (in August). We are a skilled team, but we have learned from then until now that against these teams we would have to step up our physical play and we have done that through these first two games.”
Sweden head coach Thomas Paananen on overcoming a slow start
TSN and RDS, the official broadcast partners of Hockey Canada, will broadcast the bronze medal and gold medal games; check local listings for details.All preliminary-round games and both semifinals will be available via Hockey Canada’s livestreaming partner at HNLive.ca.
