Canada's Maritimes are the Center of Attention for Hockey Fans This Week
The eyes of the hockey world have been on Canada's Maritime region this week.
In Canada, there are two U18 women’s hockey national championships. The ESSO Cup is the U18 Club National Championship. It is played every spring, while the other tournament, the Hockey Canada U18 Women's National Championship, is for provincial and regional bragging rights and provides extra exposure for the nation’s top players. That event has been going on since Nov. 2 in Labrador and Newfoundland and concludes Saturday night, Oct. 8, with the gold-medal game.
Meanwhile, an international event for boys has been unfolding not too far away in Truro, Nova Scotia. The U17 World Challenge was created in 1986 to provide an opportunity for prospects and potential future stars of the sport to experience their first taste of international play. According to Hockey Canada’s website, more than 2,000 draft picks – including 21 overall No. 1 selections – have played in the event. That list includes names such as Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, Alexander Ovechkin and Nathan MacKinnon.
These two tournaments follow almost the exact same format and schedule. They both started on Nov. 2 and end today with the bronze- and gold medal games. Participating teams were grouped into two separate pools for round-robin play. Quarterfinals were Thursday, with semifinals taking place Friday.
The U18 National Championship gold-medal game is scheduled for 6 p.m. ET at CBS Arena in Conception Bay South, NL, while the U17 championship tilt is set for 6:30 p.m. ET at Rath Eastlink Community Centre in Truro. Both games can be viewed live for free via webstream.
CLICK HERE for the U18 National Championship webstream.
CLICK HERE for the U17 World Challenge webstream.
In terms of format, the only real difference in the two events is the number of teams. The U18 tourney has an eight-team field, while six teams compete in the U17 event.
CLICK HERE for U18 National Championship pool standings.
CLICK HERE for U17 World Challenge pool standings.
There is one other similarity in the composition of the tournament fields, however.
The U18 tournament includes five teams representing different regions or provinces except for Ontario, which has two entries. Ontario Red and Ontario Blue are placed in the same pool and compete against teams from Manitoba, Quebec, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Alberta and the Atlantic Region.
For the U17 event, the host nation enters two teams – Canada White and Canada Red – that compete against squads representing the United States, Sweden, Czechia and Finland. The Canadian teams are placed in different pools for the U17 World Challenge.
Ontario is the most densely populated Canadian province and has the largest number of Hockey Canada-registered players, so this format provides an equitable opportunity for the top players there to participate in the tournament. Likewise, Canada produces the most professional hockey players of any nation in the world – especially when the country’s total population is considered – and historically has been one of the dominant hockey-playing nations on the planet.
Traditionally, splitting Ontario and the Canada into two teams for these events has had little impact on their success. Prior to this year’s National Championship, one of the Ontario teams had captured all 15 gold medals that had been awarded since the event’s inception in 2001. Ontario Red won 14 golds, with Ontario Blue taking home the hardware in 2012. That’s all about to change, however, as Ontario Red and Blue will face off for the bronze medal prior to Saturday’s championship game.
That’s right, both Ontario teams were knocked out of the running in the semifinals for the first time Friday.
Quebec rallied for a come-from-behind 4-3 victory over Ontario Blue as Emily Labonte and Laurie Aubin scored less than a minute apart in the game’s final 3:05 – with Zoe Charland, who opened the scoring in the first period, assisting on both tallies – to send their team to the finals.
The host Atlantic Region team thrilled the locals in the other semifinal matchup by skating to a 4-2 victory over Ontario Red, which beat Quebec, 1-0, in last year’s gold-medal game. Atlantic superstar Kendall Doiron scored twice in the first period as the hosts sprinted to a 3-0 lead that wasn’t safe until Megan Mossey’s empty-net goal with three seconds left in the contest.
So, it will be Quebec vs. Atlantic for all the marbles Saturday evening after the two Ontario sides battle for the bronze.
The gold-medal matchup features the tournament’s top two scorers in Quebec’s Loelie LaChapelle (4G, 3A – 7 PTS) and the Atlantic’s Hali Rose MacLean (3-4-7). Doiron has five points and is tied for fifth in tournament scoring with Quebec’s Rosalie Tremblay and Madison Levesque. Atlantic forward Jaylee MacKinnon has 2-4-6.
Fortunately for the host nation, Canada’s U17 entries didn’t suffer the same fate as the Ontario U18 teams. Both Canadian sides won their semifinal games to advance to Saturday’s gold-medal contest, with Canada White knocking off the United States in an 8-7 overtime thriller before Canada Red took care of business, 4-1, against Czechia.
Liam Pugh scored 4:16 into overtime, with Maddux Schultz picking up the assist for his second point of the game, to send Canada White to the finals. Matt Henderson, Sam Roberts and Aleks Kulemin led the way for the Canadians with a goal and two assists each, while Brayden Willis recorded four points for the U.S.
Canada Red got second-period goals from Alexis Joseph and Brock England after a scoreless first period, with Benjamin Veitch extending the margin to 3-0 midway through the final frame. England closed the scoring and sealed the victory with an empty-net goal to finish with a pair of tallies. Camryn Warren contributed two assists for the Canadians, while winning netminder Leif Oaten made 21 saves.
Joseph (6-5-11) and Canada Red teammate Charlie Murata (3-6-9) rank first and third in tournament scoring, respectively, while Schultz and Pue have paced the White attack with eight points apiece, which ties them four fourth on the tourney scoring list.
For Quebec, this will be the 10th trip to the U18 National Championship gold-medal game but the first time they won’t be facing a team from Ontario. No matter what happens in the finals, this will be the best Atlantic showing as the region’s lone medal to date was the bronze the team earned in 2005. Quebec entered this year’s event with the second-best all-time record in championship play.
The all-Canada matchup for the U17 World Challenge gold medal ensures that a Canadian team will skate away with the title for the third consecutive year. All 44 players on the two rosters have been drafted by Canadian Hockey League teams, including 19 from the Western Hockey League (WHL), 17 from the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and eight from the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL).
“This is an important step in {the players’} development and a tremendous opportunity to compete at the international level,” Hockey Canada Program of Excellence Director Allan Millar said when announcing the team roster Oct. 15. “We believe we have assembled two strong teams that will compete to defend our back-to-back gold medals.”
And they will do just that Saturday Evening in Truro.
CLICK HERE for U18 Women’s National Championship results
CLICK HERE for U18 Women’s National player statistics
CLICK HERE for U17 World Challenge results
CLICK HERE for U17 World Challenge player statistics
