Thirty Years of the Game at its Best

by Gare Joyce

  When we left for Europe after the training camp I thought things would get straightened out, but I knew we were in trouble after the first period of our first game in the tournament. We were playing the Finns in Helsinki on Christmas Day, a real challenge. When we went back to the dressing room in the first intermission, I felt like we were still in a good position to win—the game was scoreless and we were as good as the Finns. But I was shocked by what I saw in the room—one of our players slammed his stick and helmet down and started complaining about not being on the power play. That just wouldn’t have happened in ‘97.

  We showed that we had a pretty talented team in that game. We jumped out to a 1–0 lead and Alex Tanguay scored to tie the game two-all in the third period after Finland had fought back. But the Finns scored a goal with less than four minutes to go and won 3–2. We almost tied the game again right at the end. Maybe things would have turned out differently if we had, but there’s no way to know. The Finns ended up winning the tournament and we barely lost to them, even though they had twice as many power plays as we did and we were still supposed to be coming together as a team—supposed to be.

  But we started to fall apart at that point. We lost to the Swedes the next game 4–0 and we didn’t compete. At that point we started to take undisciplined penalties, retaliatory penalties. We spent a full period of that game shorthanded—a few minors would have been okay but we had unsportsmanlike penalties and roughing calls, penalties that really hurt us. We were taking retaliatory penalties right at the time when we needed to suck it up, take one for the team, and be disciplined. We had a couple of guys who were benched after taking completely unnecessary penalties. It was embarrassing.

  It looked like we might get it together in our next two games to advance to the quarter-finals. First we beat the Czechs 5–0; then we beat Germany 4–1. My

  Centre Vincent

  Lecavalier, a 17-year-

  old scoring sensation

  with Rimouski in the

  QMJHL, was expected

  to be an offensive

  catalyst but registered

  only one goal and one

  assist in seven games.

  It seemed that it

  couldn’t get worse for

  Canada after losses

  to Finland, Sweden,

  Russia, and the United

  States. But the loss

  to Kazakhstan in the

  seventh-place game

  added insult to injury.

  It was Canada’s worst

  finish in the history of

  the WJC.

  time on the ice ended in the German game. I broke a bone blocking a shot and I was in a cast and crutches the rest of the tournament. I learned the hardest way possible that you can’t lead a team from the sidelines.

  I wanted to win a gold medal in ‘98 even more than I did in ‘97. Winning it once made me want it more the next time. I had come back from a broken arm that I had suffered that fall in a car accident and I probably came back too soon, but that’s how much I wanted to play in the world juniors again. It was agonizing not to be able to play. What I saw the rest of the way was a lack of commitment and there was nothing I could do about it.

  In the quarter-finals we played the Russians in Hämeenlinna. It started out strangely. Our team had to wear the sweaters of the Hämeenlinna club team in the first period because we thought we were scheduled for red sweaters, not our whites. So we were the first and so far only Canadian team not to wear the maple leaf. Our white sweaters didn’t arrive until the intermission. That was typical of the game and the tournament—everything just felt a little bit off. We still had a great chance to go ahead to the medal round.

  It was one-all at the end of regulation and Eric Brewer hit the post with a shot from the point in overtime. But with 30 seconds left in the first overtime period, there were a bunch of mistakes, a shift that was too long, a safe play that could have been made and wasn’t, a pinch at the wrong time, and the Russians took the puck the other way and scored.

  I thought that it could never get worse in hockey than that loss. Not even close. In the consolidation rounds, we played the United States first—a game that we should have been able to get up for, no matter what had happened against the Russians. But our team was really falling apart.

  Two other guys were knocked out because of injuries and three more were benched for discipline reasons, showing up late and missing meetings. With a short bench, we lost to the U.S. and it never felt like we were in the game. It was humbling watching the Americans celebrate.

  Again I thought that it could never get worse than that loss. Again I was wrong.

  We didn’t even show up for the seventh-place game against Kazakhstan. We should have been able to dominate that game, even with the injuries and a short bench. The Kazakhs even started their backup goaltender. I remember going into the dressing room and yelling at the guys between periods. I don’t remember what I said, but it wouldn’t matter now because it didn’t make a difference then. It was a complete collapse. We lost 6–3 to a team that had half a dozen sticks in the rack by their bench and skates that didn’t match.

  I believe you learn something, as a player and later as a coach, from every experience you have with a team. I learned what was possible with the right attitude and discipline with the Canadian team in ‘97; I learned the risks of having the wrong attitude and a lack of discipline with the team in ‘98. I think things are different in a lot of ways today. The under-18 teams deliver players to the world junior teams who have a lot more international experience than back in the ‘90s. I was an example of that—I had none when I went to Geneva and there were players on our team in Finland in the same situation.

  One thing that I learned as a coach in the Program of Excellence is that “discipline” doesn’t mean rules and no fun. I worked as an assistant to Pat Quinn with the Canadian team that won the world under-18s in Russia in 2009. It was an amazing thing to see how Pat was able to get his message across and to instill in a team discipline without being draconian about it—it’s not all bad medicine if you just make it a habit. A team with good habits doesn’t even feel like it’s working with a tough system of discipline. It’s something I strive for with my junior teams in Red Deer these days. I wish it was something that we’d had in Finland in ‘98.

  Goaltender Roberto

  Luongo was Canada’s

  best player in

  Winnipeg. It turned

  out that great wasn’t

  good enough to win the

  host team a gold medal

  against Russia in the

  final.

  The indelible signature to the 1999 tournament was supplied by goaltender Roberto Luongo. Even in defeat, Luongo’s remarkable efforts in nearly single-handedly capturing gold for Team Canada on a frigid January evening at the Winnipeg Arena set a standard only a handful of Canadian junior goalies have been able to match over the long history of the event.

  With arch-rival Russia as the opponent it didn’t turn out to be Canada’s night, despite the relentless, screaming support of the sea of white, but it surely was Luongo’s night. If not for Luongo, if it had been a goaltender who was only very good, the Russians would have run Canada out of the old barn under the giant portrait of Queen Elizabeth II that night, and ruined the sense that the home country had bounced back after the eighth-place finish at the world juniors the previous year in Finland.

  “Roberto was our best player throughout the tournament,” defenceman Robyn Regehr recalled. “But I thought he saved his best performance for that game.”

  That, of course, was exactly what Luongo was supposed to do. At the time, he was the highest drafted goaltender in the history of the NHL, with the New York Islanders selecting him fourth overall in 1997. He had been part of the Canadian junior squad that had suffered a shocking defeat to Kazakhstan in 1998. Luongo,

  Fans gave the

  Canadian juniors

  the full “s
ea

  of white” support

  at Winnipeg Arena.

  The atmosphere in

  the building after

  the semifinal rout of

  favoured Sweden

  was in sharp contrast

  to the silence that

  followed Artem

  Chubarov’s overtime

  goal in the final.

  one of five returnees from the ‘98 team, was the focus of attention from the start. “I’ve heard all these things about him,” said head coach Tom Renney. “Now I look forward to seeing them.”

  Every member of the 22-man Canadian team would eventually play in the NHL, but it wasn’t a powerhouse, particularly offensively. That meant it was clear that if Canada were to rebound—”This Is for Pride” was the team’s slogan for the competition—Luongo would have to lead the way.

  Canada had won three of the four previous times the event was held on its soil, including four years earlier with a dominant performance in Red Deer, Alberta. But this was a bigger stage at a turning point in the history of the world juniors, when the event was looking to bigger cities and bigger arenas, and greater exposure around the world. The 10-team event was to include games in Brandon, Selkirk, Portage La Prairie, Morden, and Teulon, spreading the wealth of the international junior game around a province starved for big-time hockey. Still, the games and atmosphere in Winnipeg are what the players remember most.

  “The fans in Winnipeg were fantastic,” Regehr recalled. “I remember they were truly excited. They had the sea of white going, and it had been a few years since they’d lost the Jets so they were really excited to see hockey again in that way.”

  Renney, a CHA vice-president at the time, searched for chemistry as he formed his team, cutting five NHL first-rounders before settling on his roster. Mike Van Ryn was the captain, Daniel Tkachuk of the OHL’s Barrie Colts was to be the top centre, and Brad Stuart of Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, had turned down an NHL contract from San Jose for one more year of junior hockey and a chance to fight for a world title. The roster featured skill possessed by the likes of Simon Gagné and defenceman Brian Campbell, but the team was defined by the grit of those who skated in front of Luongo—grinders like Tyler Bouck, Kent McDonell, Brenden Morrow, and Adam Mair.

  A 5–3 pre-tournament victory over Russia in Kenora, Ontario, seemed to suggest

  that Renney had chosen well, but the opening game of the tournament told a different story. Slovakian hockey officials declined to invite their top two tournament-eligible players, Marian Hossa and Robert Dome, but those who did play against the host nation made it tough. Canada couldn’t score a single goal on Jan Lasak in the Slovakia goal, stunning the fans at the Keystone Centre in Brandon. But Luongo wouldn’t be beaten either, stopping 36 shots and leaving the impression that while Canada had certainly not shone, it had an ironclad insurance policy between the pipes.

  “The whole tournament was that way for me,” said Luongo, who had been traded from Val-d’Or to Acadie-Bathurst two days before leaving to join the national team. “I just remember being in a zone the whole time.”

  Canada’s next game, against Finland, was expected to be a classic goaltending matchup, pitting Luongo against Mika Noronen, who had been brilliant the year before in helping the Finns win gold in Helsinki. Instead, it was a shootout. The Canadian offence burst to life, producing a 6–4 triumph. Tkachuk scored twice, his linemates Kyle Calder and Rico Fata each scored once, and Gagné found an empty net to put the game away. Luongo posted his second shutout two days later, 2–0 over the Czech Republic, to keep Canada unbeaten.

  But after being beaten 5–2 on New Year’s Eve by the previously winless Americans (led by Brian Gionta and David Legwand), Canada was forced into a quarter-final game and it seemed possible that for a second straight year, the national program might not produce a medal. The opponent was, once again, Kazakhstan, featuring Toronto first-round pick Nikolai Antropov, who had been part of the squad that had upset mighty Canada

  Defencemen Andrew

  Ference and Mike

  Van Ryn (wearing the

  captain’s C) were

  part of a solid blue-line

  corps that, along with

  Luongo’s brilliance,

  helped push the final

  into overtime.

  Russia’s speed in

  transition forced the

  Canadian team to

  scramble back on

  defence in the gold-

  medal game. Here,

  Van Ryn tries to close

  the gap on a Russian

  forward.

  12 months earlier. This time, however, there would be no such upset. Gagné scored four times, Canada led 8–0 after two periods, and the final 12–2 score set up a clash with the Swedes in the semifinals.

  Sweden—managed by two former New York Islanders, Stefan Persson and Mats Hallin—came in featuring the much-discussed Sedin twins, Henrik and Daniel, and a new attitude. “The days of the chicken Swede are long gone,” said Hallin, the coach of the team. “We ain’t backing down.” Armed with that belligerent new attitude, the unbeaten and untied Swedes were heavy favourites. Canada hadn’t beaten a team with a winning record, while Tre Kronor had

  scored 25 goals in four games and received 21 points from its top line of the Sedins alongside Christian Berglund.

  Before a sellout crowd of 14,000, the game was emotional and physical from the start. Each team had a player ejected in the first period. Canada’s Brad Ference was tossed for a heavy check on Gabriel Karlsson that saw Karlsson carried off on a stretcher, while Berglund was mistakenly given a game misconduct for high-sticking Tyler Bouck (as replays showed, it was actually Berglund’s skate that had accidently clipped the Canadian forward). Even the coaches, Renney and Hallin, got into it, shouting at each other across the benches.

  Sweden scored first, but then McDonell tied it in the second, Gagné scored short-handed, and Tkachuk put the third Canadian goal past nervous Swedish netminder Andreas Andersson. The rout was on. By the end, it was 6–1 for Canada, a spectacular result for a national squad that had looked flat for so much of the tournament but had come to life when challenged by the Swedes.

  On the other side of the draw was Russia, a team with talented forwards like Maxim Afinogenov, Artem Chubarov, Roman Lyashenko, and Maxim Balmochnykh, and a CHL netminder in Alexei Volkov, who played for the Halifax Mooseheads. The Russians had lost the gold-medal game to the Finns in overtime the year before, and, while strong defensively, they didn’t seem to have an overwhelming array of offensive weapons to throw at Canada. What they did have, however, was an emotionally spent opponent—spent from the intense battle against Sweden the night before.

  “I felt the tank was empty by the six-minute mark of the first period,” Renney said.

  From the start, the Russians dominated the contest as they searched for their first world junior title in seven years. Luongo was all the Canadians really had in response, as their attack managed just nine shots over the first two periods. But the Russians could build only a 2–1 lead by late in the third thanks to Luongo’s heroics. When defenceman Bryan Allen’s knuckler skipped past Volkov with six minutes left, an overtime classic was at hand.

  Again Luongo bared his teeth at the Russian attack, and by the five-minute mark of the extra session had stopped 37 of 39 shots. Moments later, Chubarov, who had scored in the first, grabbed a loose puck along the boards in the Canadian zone, cut to the middle of the ice, and let a shot go.

  “He kind of fanned on it,” Luongo said. “It was a bit of a knuckler, and I kind of whiffed on it. Then it hit the post and went in.”

  Disbelief immediately set in. This wasn’t the fairy-tale ending the Winnipeg crowd had anticipated. Just as the Jets had packed up and left, Team Canada had arrived and come up with silver, but not gold. And yet Luongo defined the gold-medal

  game and the tournament. His heroic efforts in the final gave his exhausted team a cha
nce to win.

  “It was 12 years ago, and so much has happened since then for me,” said Luongo, recalling the ‘99 junior tournament. “The Olympics, world championships, I’ve had international experiences, and they’ve kind of taken over from that. Maybe it would be different if we had won.”

  Different, perhaps. More memorable, probably not. Anyone who was there will always remember that game, that performance, that cold night in Winnipeg when a hot goalie was nearly enough.

  Brenden Morrow

  and other Canadian

  forwards rocked

  Sweden with a

  punishing forecheck to

  get to the gold-medal

  game. By the final,

  however, the host

  team had run out of

  gas and faded, despite

  Luongo’s heroics.

  One of the players to

  win a surprise spot

  in the lineup was

  Michael Ryder, who

  played for Canadian

  coach Claude Julien’s

  Hull Olympiques.

  Distant and remote. A land without light. Foreboding. Hardly the place most teenage boys want to spend New Year’s Eve.

  Yet perfect for an unexpected shot in the dark. Or a save.

  Going overseas to challenge for the world junior hockey championship, of course, had always required a special effort for Canadian national teams. Problems from simple homesickness to illness to bad food to poor behaviour had, on occasion, tripped up the junior nats, often making the job of winning gold more difficult.

  And then there was the 2000 WJC in northern Sweden.

  Shared between the cities of Skellefteå and Umea, it was a trip for 22 Canadian hockey players to one of the least exotic parts of Sweden at a time of year when simple daylight is at a premium. Sometimes the sun shines for only a few hours a day just south of the Arctic Circle, producing a gloomy holiday season for the unprepared.

  “We basically had three hours of light per day,” recalled Claude Julien, the head coach of that Canadian team. “We told the guys to leave the lights on in the hotel room, because that’s where you got your energy from. Whenever it was light outside we’d go for a walk and really tried to utilize the light as best we could.”