It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.
Following an inauspicious preliminary round with three losses in four games, Okotoks Oilers Sam Huck, Jack Silverberg, Rylan Brown and Team Canada West rallied in the playoffs with an overtime thriller over the United States and a 7-2 romp over Canada East in the final to take home the gold medal at the 2023 World Junior A Challenge Dec. 17 in Truro, N.S.
“I think we really found our stride in our last game against the U.S.,” said Silverberg, Canada West's captain, on the TSN broadcast. “We had the same gameplan coming into (the final), we’ve got to get on them quick and use our feet.”
In the final, Silverberg opened the scoring with Huck playing provider on the rush just 70 seconds into the gold medal game.
“It was a good play from Hucky to get it across over to me coming down the left side,” Silverberg said. “It was a little in front of me so I knew if I got it quick on the forehand and got it on net, something good would happen and it went straight in.”
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Canada West added a Layne Loomer powerplay tally and in the second frame exploded with Ronan Buckberger twice tickling the twine along with a Matthew Van Blaricom tally.
Huck insured they got to the final, netting the game-winning-goal 6:36 into the extra-session to lift Canada West 4-3 past the United States in the semifinal on Saturday night.
"I'm feeling pretty good," said Huck on the HNLive broadcast. "First goal of the tournament and it's a big one sending our team to the finals, which is massive."
The slick forward drove to the net and tucked in a nice pass from Dominic Payne, of the Sherwood Park Crusaders, for his first goal of the competition.
The victory set up an all-Canada final with Team West locking horns with Team East for the gold for the first time since the 2011 tournament.
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The United States entered the playoff round as the top-seed with a 4-0 record while Canada West was the No. 4 seed with one win in four round-robin games.
"We knew it wasn't going to be an easy tournament when we got here," Huck said. 'We dropped the first few games, but we didn't get down on ourselves and just tried to get better every game.
"Today, we knew we had to win and we came out here and had our best game of the tournament and got a win for it."
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Silverberg enjoyed a strong tournament with seven points in six games, highlighted by a four-point effort in the win over Slovakia on Dec. 13. Brown contributed one goal and three points from the back-end.
Canada West could almost be called Team Alberta Junior Hockey League with 19 of the players on the roster out of the provincial loop.
“It’s been awesome,” Silverberg said. “All of the guys are great and it’s fun because I’m playing against all of these guys back home and then you get to be on a team with them and there’s a lot of skill here.
“It’s fun with all of the guys and the tournament has been great.”
The United States earned the bronze medal over Sweden to kickoff the medal festivities on Sunday.
For more information go to hockeycanada.ca.
