And now Moose Jaw Warriors general manager Alan Millar will join the National Junior Team in having a chance to make it back-to-back gold and repeat champions for the first time since the 2008 and ‘09 tournaments.
Millar is with Team Canada in the Edmonton bubble as part of the Hockey Canada U20 management group.
Canada looked completely dominant in rolling to a 5-0 win over Russia in the first semifinal on Monday night, and later in the evening the United States battled to a 4-3 win over Finland to set up the first gold medal match up between the North American rivals since 2017.
For Canada was another day at the office as Devon Levi continued his stellar showing through the event with a 28-save shutout, tying the record held by Justin Pogge for more clean sheets in a tournament.
“I felt good, it was a fun game to play for sure, a semifinal game against our rivals so I wouldn’t have wanted it to go any other way,” Levi said on TSN.ca. “Our team played well, we got some goals and they played well defensively, which made my job super easy tonight.”
Alex Newhook — who returned to the ice after suffering a shoulder injury in the round robin against Finland — scored only 59 seconds into the game, and the route was on. Connor McMichael and Cole Perfetti would make it 3-0 before the first period was out, Prince Albert’s Braden Schneider made it 4-0 with the lone goal of the third and Dylan Cozens capped scoring with an empty-netter with 1:29 to play.
“You want to be in the last game,” said Canada head coach Andre Tourigny on IIHF.com. “You want to be part of something special, and that last game will be special. I'm proud for everyone to have made it this far, but I've been on both sides of that game and the right side is way more fun. We have a lot of business still to do.”
For the U.S., it was a much closer battle, as they took a 3-1 lead into the third period, only to see Finland rally with a pair of goals in the final 10 minutes to tie the game with 3:43 remaining. Arthur Kaliyev would get that one right back, though, scoring with only 1:16 left in regulation to send his team to the final with their heart-stopping win.
“It's something that you dream about, USA and Canada in a gold medal game,” said U.S. forward John Farinacci, who also scored for the Americans. “It's gonna be a fun game, and we've got to play a full 60 minutes if we want to get that gold medal.”
Cozens and Trevor Zegras of the United States are tied for the tournament scoring lead with 16 points each, Cozens with eight goals and Zegras with six. Spencer Knight is expected to get the start in goal for the U.S. and carries a 92.17 save percentage to go along with a 1.98 goals against average. Levi, on the other hand, has a 97.46 save percentage and 0.53 goals against average.
Canada and the U.S. have met for the gold medal four times, with Canada winning in 1997 and the Americans having taken the title in 2004, 2010 and 2017.
Russia and Finland will play for bronze at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, the TSN pre-game show kicking off at 7:30 p.m. and the gold medal game dropping the puck at 8:30 p.m.
