'Very unpredictable tournament so far': World Juniors hit halfway point of round-robin play

World Juniors sees unexpected excellence This year’s World Juniors has seen unexpected upsets with each country stepping up their level of play. Alana Pickrell reports.

With the World Juniors taking over the Maritimes, people expected good hockey, but the tournament has also managed to bring some surprises to life-long fans.

“The opening game we watched Switzerland and Finland and we were quite surprised by the outcome of that one,” said Craig Weir ahead of Thursday’s Finland vs. Latvia noon game.

“I’d say also maybe the last game we just watched too, it was against Slovakia vs. USA, that was quite an upset I’d say,” added Ethan Weir.

That game saw a 6-3 win for Slovakia on Wednesday night and it was one that fans were still talking about.

“I think [the] thing that surprised most people is Czech beating Canada and Slovakia beating the USA. But I think people forget those countries produced top-tier talent,” said Travis Boyce. “Czech gave us Jagr, Slovakia gave us Chara, so if you really think about it, it’s not that shocking.”

“You can never count out the states,” Boyce adds. “As Canadians, we like to write them off, but the states have always been a good hockey nation.”

However, this year, even experts are calling the daily results hard to call.

“We’ve had a very, very unpredictable tournament so far,” said Marty Kingston, public address announcer. “These games will continue and it just leads to the incredible buzz of this tournament.”

More specifically, he adds, “Canada did rebound in great form against Germany, but the Swiss have been playing well, the Slovakians have been playing well, with a victory over the U.S., all teams battling hard, it’s been really fun to watch. The Americans have their hands full with Switzerland.”

At the Avenir Centre, Kingston says it feels like fans have adopted Team Switzerland this year since two Moncton Wildcat players are on the team.

But, with more players playing in junior hockey circles nowadays, he says it’s more even on the ice this year than in past tournaments.

“Hockey now being a global entity, it’s not only North American anymore,” he said. “The Europeans are adapting quickly. They have some fine young talent there. They quickly come over and play university and college, they’ll play major junior hockey and go to university in the U.S. So I think the talent seems to be rising and thinning out.”

Even with all of that, he says Canada still has an advantage on the ice by using more creativity.

“Where they might be more system based, we tend to be more creative with players like a [Connor] Bedard, like a Shane Wright that can break a game right open at any time.”

As for the fans, they’re enjoying the top-tier hockey right in their own backyards, even if each game has them on the edge of their seat.

"I guess that’s just the fun part about the World Juniors, you know, anything can happen, so really, it’s just a grab bag with what’s going to happen with the results and everything,” said Ethan.