My deepest respect to those of you who got up much earlier than I did to watch Canada take on Germany to kick off this year's World Juniors. It's true—the round-robin portion typically doesn't offer much suspense.
Canada's true tests won't come until they play the USA, Finns, and Swedes. They'll see Team USA on New Year's Eve, the last round-robin game before the medal round begins.
Canada's 7-2 win today brings their all-time record against Germany to 12-0. That being said, the Germans did a good job of hanging in for most of the first period—tying the game at 2-2 before the Canadians took control. Late goals by Anthony Mantha and Bo Horvat made the score 4-2 before the end of the opening frame, then it was easy going for the rest of the game.
Chelsea Dagger is blasting as the Germans' goal song for their second marker. That's enough to fire up any Canuck fan.
Our boy Bo had a good game. He did play with future stars Connor McDavid and Sam Reinhart, who buzzed the net with shot after shot while Horvat got himself wide open to roof the puck for his first goal of the tournament.
Horvat's final stat line was one goal, four shots, and a plus-2. He went 11-5 in the faceoff circle and took one second-period hooking penalty.
TSN is offering Video on Demand of the entire tournament this year, which is fantastic. If you missed this morning's matchup, watch it here at your leisure.
Canada's off tomorrow. Their next game will be against the Czechs on Saturday morning, at a slightly-more-civilized 8:00 a.m. The Czechs fell 5-1 to Team USA in their first game today.
Christmas Crumbs
- I spent some time yesterday reading Stephen Harper's hockey book, A Great Game. I'm not sure how I feel about the prime minister taking time off from running the country to write a book about hockey, but the book is well-researched, filled with photos and pretty interesting.
The subtitle is "The Forgotten Leafs and the Rise of Professional Hockey," which was a bit of a turnoff to me—Leafs, really? The early part of the book focuses on the evolution of hockey in southern Ontario, but I have yet to meet a Leaf so far. Looking forward to digging in further today.
- I'm taking @strombone1's cheery holiday tweets as a positive sign that Roberto Luongo is not suffering from a significant injury. Here's another one from last night:
SO NOT FUNNY PEPE......... pic.twitter.com/QDPrZZQ3ZJ
— Strombone (@strombone1) December 26, 2013- Scooby_Doo was asking yesterday for clarification on David Booth's holiday tweet. I Googled around and didn't find a source for the quote or any sort of explanation—just a lot of websites about homelessness. Does anybody have more insight?
Once again, here's the tweet:
Only where He was homeless, are you and I at home
— David Booth (@D_Booth7) December 24, 2013My interpretation, through Booth's traditional Christian lens, would be that this is about Jesus suffering so that we can live comfortable lives? That's just a guess, though. Would be happy to hear your thoughts.
Roster News:
While we've been feasting, the Canucks made another small roster move. Minor-league defenseman Adam Polasek was placed on waivers for the purpose of terminating his contract.
The Canuck Way does a nice job of explaining the move and its implications—basically opening up a bit more space on Vancouver's 50-man total roster. Click here to read their story.
Good luck if you're off to the Boxing Day sales today!