Canada advances to semifinal of World Under 18 championship

Article content

The beat goes on for Team Canada at the World Under 18 men’s hockey championship in Finland.

On Thursday, Canada downed Latvia 4-0 to advance to Saturday’s semifinal round in a rematch with Sweden, who they defeated 6-3 to open the tournament last week.

Canada will take on Sweden at noon on Saturday (TSN, RDS) looking for a berth in the championship on Sunday against either the United States or Slovakia.

In the win over Latvia, Caleb Desnoyers of the Moncton Wildcats and Riverview’s Spencer Gill of the Rimouski Oceanic were both in the lineup for Canada, which is now 5-0 in the tournament and 7-0 if you include a pair of pre-tournament victories.

The Canadians, who have Gardiner MacDougall of the University of New Brunswick as head coach and Travis Crickard of the Saint John Sea Dogs as one of the assistant coaches, started strong with two goals in the first period but needed a player of the game effort from goaltender Carter George to clinch the win.

George made 23 saves, including several key efforts in the third period when it was 2-0.

Desnoyers set up an insurance goal in the third period with his fourth point of the tournament in the past three games.

He did not play in the opener against Sweden or Game 2 against Czechia.

“It was a big game for our group. I think when you have the one-game elimination it sets you up for a semifinal that is going to be a challenge for our group,” MacDougall said.

“We had a big start, got the lead and had a solid third period. The second period could have been better for us, but we’ll take the result. As a team, we’re still not where we want to be. We want to be the most improved team. We’ve shown the ability to score and defend. Both goaltenders have played well, as has our defence, and we’re getting contributions from all our forwards.”

Desnoyers was injured in the final period and received treatment on his left arm from Kevin Elliott of Saint John, the athletic therapist on Team Canada. He remained on the bench and took part in the post-game ceremonies.

Canada and Sweden met in last year’s quarter-final round where Sweden blasted the Canadian side 7-2. In preliminary round action at this year’s event, Canada downed Sweden 6-3.

In other quarter-final games, the United States blanked Switzerland 4-0, Sweden edged Finland 3-2 and Czechia fell 3-2 to Slovakia.

Ales Zielinski of the Moncton Wildcats had an assist in 19:23 of action in the loss for Czechia.