Junior Team Canada will attempt to win a third gold medal in a row at the World Junior Championship, which begins Tuesday in Gothenburg, Sweden, and despite once again high expectations, the players are ready for the challenge that lies ahead of them.
The management of the Canadian team has also reminded its skaters of this, as explained by defender Maveric Lamoureux, who was drafted 29th in the 2022 draft by the Arizona Coyotes.
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“Management spoke to us about it,” declared the Quebecer, whose comments were relayed by the site NHL.com. Expectations are really high. The main goal is to go for gold and nothing less and they’ve talked to us about that many times, so I feel like the expectations are really high and the goal is to win and that’s it. »
However, Canada’s head coach, Alan Letang, wanted to remind people that we will have to take it one day at a time in order to achieve this objective.
“We talked about staying in the present moment and so we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves,” he said. But you know what? I think you know we put together a good group. We wanted this camp to be super competitive to push the guys because we know what we’re going to come up against. We know the teams we are going to face in Europe.
A useful experience for Beck
Montreal Canadiens prospect Owen Beck is the only player from the current edition of Canada who won gold last year in Halifax. He therefore hopes that this experience will help him show the right path to follow to his teammates during the tournament.
Beck was also named assistant to captain Fraser Minten for the competition.
“My first year I was a little nervous, I was definitely walking on eggshells,” he said. It’s definitely a little easier and more comfortable this year to know what’s going on and know where to be. If I can help the guys, that’s what I want to do.”
Canada will begin hostilities against Finland on Tuesday. Letang’s men will then face Latvia on Wednesday, then Sweden on Friday. They will finish the group stage against Germany on December 31.