As we are only a handful of days
away from the beginning of the World Junior Hockey Championship, it would be
good to look the unprecedented run the Canadians had of five gold medal
victories in a row in the 1990s. It was an unbelievable accomplishment that
featured a dream of sorts during the 1995 tournament due to the labour strife
between the NHL and its players’ union. The five-in-a-row would be repeated in
the first decade of the new millennium, with another dream team (2005) put
together due to another lock out.
1993: Gavle, Sweden
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| Canada's Paul Kariya, 1993 |
The Canadian team had won
back-to-back gold medals in 1990 and 1991 and everyone was expecting a third in
1992. However, the team underachieved—and was hit with a vicious flu bug—and
were only able to finish in sixth place. The time for redemption came in 1993.
Canada was not expected to win
gold as the host, Sweden, led by young superstar Peter Forsberg, was expected
to dominate. At this time, the World Juniors was strictly a round-robin
tournament with the order of finish after all games were completed determining the medalists; there was no play off round like there is today.
Canada, led by Martin LaPointe,
Paul Kariya and goaltender Manny Legace, started with a 3-0 victory over the
United States and then upset the heavily favoured Swedes 5-4, despite Forsberg’s
prediction of an easy victory for Sweden. Then came a 9-1 thrashing of Russia,
a 3-2 squeaker against Finland, a 5-2 win over Germany and an 8-1 victory over
Japan. Yes, that’s right, I said Japan.
The Gold Medal was clinched with
the victory over Japan, but Canada failed on their chance to go undefeated by
dropping the final game to the Czech Republic, 7-4. Canada and Sweden finished
with matching 6-1 records, but Canada won gold due to their victory earlier in
the tourney.
1994: Ostrava and
Frydek-Mistek, Czech Republic
Another round-robin tournament
saw Canada go undefeated for their second straight gold medal. Their only
blemish was a tie, to finish with a 6-0-1 record. A 5-1 victory over
Switzerland kicked off the tourney, with a 5-2 win over Germany, followed by
the tie, a 3-3 affair with Russia.
Next up was a 6-3 win over
Finland, an 8-3 triumph over the Americans and a 6-4 beating of the Czechs.
This set up a gold medal showdown between Sweden in the final game. Whereas
Canada entered the game with 11 points after five wins and a tie, the Swedes
entered the game with 12 points after six straight wins. Canada needed to win
to capture the gold as a tie would have left Sweden ahead.
In the end, of course, it was
Canada who took the game 6-4. Martin Gendron and Yanick Dube were Canada’s leading
point getters with ten each, while the goaltending duties were shared by Jamie
Storr and Manny Fernandez.
1995: Red Deer,
Alberta, Canada
Now it was the dream team’s turn
as the lockout, which wouldn’t be settled until February, allowed those on NHL
rosters who were still under the age of 20 to compete in the tournament.
Altogether, there were 13 first-round NHL draft picks on the Canadian team,
including Alexandre Daigle, Marty Murray, Jason Allison, Eric Daze, Bryan
McCabe, Ryan Smyth, Darcy Tucker and Ed Jovanovski.
Canada cruised to a perfect 7-0
record with victories over Ukraine (7-1), Germany (9-1), United States (6-3),
the Czechs (7-5), Finland (6-4), Russia (8-5) and Sweden (4-3).
Russia won silver, four points
behind Canada while Sweden picked up the bronze.
1996: Boston,
Massachusetts, USA
For the first time in tournament
history, a playoff round would be held to determine the World Junior Hockey Champion.
And for the first time in tournament history, a country (Canada, of course) won
the gold medal for the fourth consecutive year.
Canada’s goaltending—the duties
were shared by Jose Theodore and Marc Denis--allowed a combined total of eight
goals in the six games. In the round robin, Canada finished with four wins, no
losses or ties. They defeated the USA 6-1, Switzerland 2-1, Finland 3-1, and
the Ukraine 8-1. By finishing top of the pool, they received a bye into the
semi-finals.
They defeated Russia 4-3 in the
semis and then took out the Swedes 4-1 in the gold medal game. Russia defeated
the Czechs by the same 4-1 score in the bronze medal game. Jerome Iginla won
the scoring title with 12 points and he, Theodore and defenseman Nolan Baumgartner
were selected to the tournament All-Star team.
For the second year in a row,
Canada won all their games and it was the third consecutive year that they were
unbeaten (the tie in 1994 the only game they weren’t victorious).
1997: Geneva and
Morges, Switzerland
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| Canada's starting goalie, Marc Denis. |
Canada again would finish the tournament
undefeated, but two ties in the round robin put them in second place behind the
Americans in their pool meaning they wouldn’t get a bye into the semi-finals
and would have to qualify with a win in the quarter-finals.
A 4-1 victory over Germany in
the first game was followed by a 4-4 tie with the US. They then defeated
Switzerland 4-1 before tying the Czechs in the final game of the preliminaries.
An easy 7-2 win over Slovakia in the quarters, was followed by a come-from-behind
3-2 over the Russians in the semis. A 2-0 shutout victory over the US in the
final earned the Canadians their fifth straight gold medal. A record that has
not been broken, but would be equaled a little more than a decade later.
Boyd Devereaux, Brad Isbister,
Christian Dube and Cameron Mann led the team offensively, while Chris Phillips
anchored the defense and Marc Denis was solid between the pipes, starting all
seven games.
A loss to Russia in the
quarter-final in 1998 would snap the gold medal streak and it wouldn’t be until
the middle of the next decade that Canada would win the World Juniors again.
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