The World Junior Championship has turn into a staple of hockey followers across the vacation season. With that comes an extended record of well-known moments, together with main upsets, scoring data and different oddities that would not make sense at the moment. Here’s a have a look at 5 fascinating WJC tidbits:
The event has been performed solely as soon as in a number of nations
In the six-decade historical past of the World Junior Championship as an IIHF sanctioned occasion, a number of nations have shared internet hosting duties of it simply as soon as. The 1982 occasion, which noticed Canada take house the gold for the primary time, was collectively hosted within the United States and Canada. Various cities throughout Minnesota, Manitoba, and Ontario hosted the event.
The 1982 occasion additionally enters into world juniors lore for the Canadians making essentially the most out of there not being a recording of O Canada being accessible to be performed after clinching the gold medal. The gamers took it upon themselves to sing the anthem — a bit out of tune, however boisterous nonetheless.
The largest upset in event historical past was not televised
The 1998 iteration will all the time go down because the worst event for Canada.
A Canadian squad with excessive expectations and loaded with future NHLers barely made it out of the round-robin and headed into the quarter-finals fourth of their group. A loss within the quarterfinals to Russia, adopted by a placement sport loss to the USA, meant enjoying Kazakhstan within the seventh place sport.
Kazakhstan would shock the Canadians with a 6-3 win. Sportsnet’s Gare Joyce wrote concerning the battle in 2018 with first-hand accounts from Canadian gamers who mentioned Kazakhstan gamers shared a single water bottle and even sticks. By all accounts, Canada ought to have dominated the sport.
The sport will endlessly stay on solely in participant accounts as the sport for no matter purpose was not televised by TSN neither is there any audio and even images of the sport. To have one of many extra surprising leads to event historical past stay on through phrase of mouth solely could be one of many extra fascinating tales in all of hockey.
A decade later, Canada beat Kazakhstan 15-0.
No participant has recorded 20 or extra factors in a event since 1993
There are all the time a couple of gamers who everyone seems to be chasing in factors on this occasion and in 1993, Peter Forsberg and Markus Naslund set the limitations so excessive they might by no means be surpassed. Playing of their house nation through the event, Forsberg and Naslund recorded 31 and 24 factors respectively because the duo led Sweden to a silver medal.
Sweden’s offense was an absolute buzzsaw through the event as they scored a tournament-best 53 objectives, with their largest output being a 20-1 win over Japan.
Yes, you learn that proper. 20-1. The Swedish win continues to be essentially the most lopsided sport in World Juniors historical past as Forsberg would file 10 factors within the victory.
A playoff spherical didn’t arrive till 1996
For shut to twenty years of the world juniors historical past as an IIHF occasion, and even going again to the times of being an unofficial event, the round-robin portion decided who gained medals.
That meant, usually, that the ultimate day would imply nothing if a crew went undefeated main as much as the conclusion. The 1996 occasion in Massachusetts was the primary that noticed the introduction of a playoff spherical to find out the gold, silver, and bronze medals. The identical occasion additionally noticed the introduction of the relegation spherical and two teams containing 5 groups every.
CHL groups represented Canada earlier than 1977
Various CHL groups would have the dignity of representing Canada earlier than the IIHF got here alongside and made it the premier U-20 event. In 1974, the OHL’s Peterborough Petes would play within the first-ever event, with the WHL sending an all-star squad the next 12 months.
The Sherbrooke Castors of the QMJHL have the dignity of being the final crew from Canada’s main junior league to play within the occasion. A Canadian crew medaled yearly below this format, however none of them ever took the last word prize.
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