Canada 5 ; Russia 4... close game.
Russia outplayed Canada by a small margin. Canada got much better goaltending.

Caveat on Russia outplaying Canada
Its hard to tell if Russia would've dominated play for so long in the 2nd period if Canada didn't break out to a 5-1 lead. Also, Ref called chintzy penalties on Canada and none on Russia.

Some casual observers claim Russian hockey is in decline. In the past 5 years Russia has been the best team in this tournament. Also, Russia's juniors come over to North America to play in the "Subway Series" against the OHL, WHL and QMJHL. They play great in this event as well. Russian hockey is alive and well.

with respect to the finns, swedes, and americans...
the best hockey games ever played are Russia/U.S.S.R. versus Canada... and the score is 6-5 or 5-4.

http://www.tsn.ca/tsn-rds-draw-record-7-1-million-viewers-to-world-junior-gold-medal-game-1.176379

Congratz to Canada; they never trailed in the 2014 Olympics and now they went the entire 2015 World Juniors while never trailing. 39 goals for... 9 goals against over 7 games.

Mike Babcock and Benoit Groulx deserve a lot of credit for the above mentioned 2 accomplishments.

JimmyJRaynor

Canada16711 Posts

January 05 2016 21:15 GMT

#22

CONGRATZ TO FINLAND

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they pulled off the international hat trick with wins over Canada and Sweden and Russia to win Gold.
Helsinki put on a great show.. over 1 million Finns tuned into the Canada/Finland game.

Heartbreaking Silver for Russia for the 2nd year in a row. If you combine both years together you'd have to say Russia has had the best team over all.

To Andy Elo, my Finnish Starcraft and Chess rival... party on my brother!

rotta

5589 Posts

January 05 2016 21:25 GMT

#23

Too cold to meet at TORI I suppose?

amazingxkcd

GRAND OLD AMERICA16375 Posts

January 05 2016 21:37 GMT

#24

eh, USA made it to semis and Slovakia made it to Ro8. Im ok with that, I guess??

JimmyJRaynor

Canada16711 Posts

January 05 2016 21:56 GMT

#25

On January 06 2016 06:37 amazingxkcd wrote:
eh, USA made it to semis and Slovakia made it to Ro8. Im ok with that, I guess??

Ron Wilson is a hard-ass, ruthless, dick face. and, i mean that in a complimentary way. He is a good hockey man and its great to see Ron Wilson with his confidence back.

y0su

Finland7871 Posts

January 05 2016 22:04 GMT

#26

FINLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WINLAND!!!!!!!!

TORILLE!!!!!!!!

edit: It's not too cold for a rally... I unfortunately have work in the morning

Luolis

Finland7106 Posts

January 05 2016 23:22 GMT

#27

ASDFASDGFASDFGNKSNDFGKN WINLANDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

JimmyJRaynor

Canada16711 Posts

January 06 2016 00:32 GMT

#28

Sudden Over-Death Time Winning Goal.

Helsinki set a European attendance record for this event. TV Viewership in Finland was also sky-high.

JimmyJRaynor

Canada16711 Posts

January 06 2016 16:07 GMT

#29

Newspaper in Finland

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JimmyJRaynor

Canada16711 Posts

January 07 2016 18:08 GMT

#30

When Canadian hockey media is doing feature articles about how Finland develops hockey players you know you are doing something right.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/juniors/how-finland-dramatically-revamped-its-hockey-program/

http://www.tsn.ca/canada-looks-to-finland-sweden-for-help-in-developing-goaltenders-1.168031

http://www.tsn.ca/radio/toronto-1050/hodge-canada-no-longer-definitive-favourite-at-wjhc-1.418571

as Hodge notes: no Canadian players were discussed as being amongst the best in the tournament. In particular Canada's crop of 17 year olds and 18 year olds are very average relative to other counry's players. The last time Canada did worse over a 5 year stretch than the current run is 1977 to 1981. Back then Canada didn't take the event seriously.

So, I agree with Dave Hodge's conclustion that this event will no longer be dominated by Canada. And really, over the past 5 years Canada has not dominated the event. Finland and Sweden are currently the most dominant countries in a very close race.

Participation in organized hockey in Canada is declining quickly due to the high cost of playing hockey and injuries. We are seeing the impact of lower participation now.

Disorganized hockey on a frozen river is still fun though.