If you're a Canadian hockey fan, you're well aware that it's been a difficult few years for Hockey Canada and our World Junior Team program. A dark chapter ended this week with the conclusion of the sexual assault trial of five players from our 2018 team. All five players were found not guilty.

Browsing through The Hockey News Archive this week provided an opportunity to remember the program's better days, including the recent 20th anniversary of the gold-medal winning 2005 World Junior Team that almost everyone believes is Canada's best of all time.

It's certainly the one most loaded with future NHL stars.

Four future Ottawa Senators were a big part of that team: Defensemen Dion Phaneuf and Braydon Coburn, forward Clarke MacArthur, and Canada's starting goalie that year, Jeff Glass. Phaneuf and MacArthur both scored huge overtime goals for the Sens in their run to the 2017 Eastern Final.

Glass was the only Sens draft pick of the four, a third-rounder who played three years in Binghamton. Glass then left for the KHL for a long time – seven years – but eventually returned to finally make his NHL debut at age 32.

But Team Canada's future star power that year was undeniable. It included Sidney Crosby, Patrice Bergeron, Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, Jeff Carter, Shea Weber, Brent Seabrook, Mike Richards, Phaneuf, MacArthur, Andrew Ladd, and the list goes on.

From our archive, Scott Burnside wrote about the dominant 2005 gold medal win, an amazing distraction during the NHL season wiped out by the lockout, in The Hockey News's January 18, 2005 issue. - SW

Canada’s Run One For Ages

By Scott Burnside, Guest Columnist

From every vantage point, from every perspective, from top to bottom, there is but one word for Canada’s 2005 gold medal-winning world junior team: Wow!

OK, there might be a few more, such as stunning, dominating or juggernaut.

But what made this team so? What made them different from a similarly powerful team that, 12 months ago in Helsinki, was shocked by the U.S. in the gold medal game?

After all, many of Canada’s faces were the same. The goaltending wasn’t as talented. Still, the 2005 Canadian juniors left Grand Forks considered to be the best team ever iced by the red-and-white.

Whether they are or not is moot. What is fascinating is how they established themselves so clearly as the dominant team in a tournament filled with NHL-caliber talent thanks to the lockout.

It begins and ends with coach Brent Sutter.

Using an NHL mentality in terms of first selecting the team and then instilling a system, Sutter found a way to forge a unified vision throughout his roster. Try getting teenagers to agree to anything and you understand the challenge that faced Sutter, as it does every junior or minor hockey league coach.

A TEAM FULL OF STARS

Virtually every player named to Sutter’s team was a star at the junior level - or, in the case of tournament MVP Patrice Bergeron, a burgeoning star at the NHL level. Of the non-goalies, 19 were either captains or assistants with then-junior teams. Yet every player took on the role demanded by Sutter. It meant that Anthony Stewart, a top Panthers prospect who might be in the NHL this season if not for the lockout, saw less power play time, but so be it. In fact, when it appeared Stewart wasn’t giving it his all in the early going, Sutter immediately dropped him down the depth chart.

“He’s a winner and that’s all he’s ever done,” said Brent’s brother Brian, coach of the NHL’s Blackhawks, prior to the WJC. “It’s very simple. He knows what it takes to be a pro. There’s a lot of people in junior (who) don’t seem to turn out the quality or the commitment it takes to make good pros. He knows what it takes to play in the NHL.”

That trait was passed along to a group who were expected to win - and instead of shrinking from the pressure, they rose to the challenge.

Whether it was a talented, but underachieving U.S. team or a gifted Russian side that collapsed in the face of. Canada’s relentless physical style, what separated the rest of the world from the gold were breakdowns. In style or discipline or goaltending. Canada, quite simply, did not have them.

They never trailed and their ability to quickly pounce on opposing teams allowed them to dictate the pace and flow at the start of every game.

In the gold medal game against Russia and its vaunted offense, Canada virtually eliminated odd-man rushes. For teenagers facing the biggest game of their lives, such discipline is almost unheard of.

The sole team to stay within two goals of Canada was the bronze medal-winning Czech Republic, but it essentially made no effort to score in losing 3-1 in the semifinal, preferring to play possum and pray for divine intervention (as attested by their 11-shot total).

Opposing coaches never complained of Canada’s physical play; rather, there was almost universal reverence offered up in regards to Canada’s game plan and execution.

2005 WJC FINISH STANDINGS

1. Canada
2. Russia
3. Czech Republic
4. United States
5. Finland
6. Sweden
7. Slovakia
8. Switzerland
9. Germany
10. Belarus

After dispatching Russia 6-1 in the final to roll to a 6-0-0 record, Sutter said what pleased him most was watching his players accept the system. Even in practice there was always intensity, a crispness other teams couldn’t match.

There’s no question the memory of last year’s stinging 4-3 loss to the U.S. was a powerful motivating force. Certainly, Canada and Sutter (who wouldn’t say whether he wants to return to defend the gold) will be hard-pressed to repeat the script. With only two players eligible to return—Sidney Crosby and Cam Barker - it is unrealistic to think a younger team could reproduce the feat.

In that sense, what was seen and achieved at the 2005 WJC is a once-in-a-lifetime feat.

WJC NOTEBOOK 

The best one-game performance belonged to 17-year-old U.S. sensation Phil Kessel, who scored three times and added an assist in an 8-2 thumping of Sweden. Two of Kessel’s goals came on brilliant individual rushes. He’s no Sidney Crosby - not yet - but he is the player around whom the U.S. will build next year’s team. And don’t be surprised if Kessel starts garnering Crosby-like talk heading into the 2006 draft.

If there was a disappointing trend, it was the lack of solid netminding. Only Marek Schwarz of the Czech Republic, named the tourney’s top goalie, lived up to expectations. Canada’s Jeff Glass was tested so rarely it’s hard to judge his impact. But Al Montoya of the U.S., both Swedish goalies (David Rautio Berguv and Christoper Heino-Lindberg) and Finland’s Tuukka Rask all turned in shaky performances which prevented their teams from greater success.

The Ralph Engelstad Arena, home of the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux, is a great facility. But it’s odd that Team USA didn’t sell out one of its games during the tournament, leaving the Canada-Russia final as the only capacity crowd (11,862). Although attendance isn’t the only measuring stick for success at the WJC, Vancouver organizers - where the WJC will be held in 2006 - feel they’ll be able to sell out all 31 games held in Vancouver, Kelowna and Kamloops. If they are successful in that regard, it could put more pressure on the IIHF to acquiesce to Hockey Canada’s aim to hold the WJC in Canada every two years.

By Scott Burnside
Guest Columnist
The Hockey News Archive
Jan 18, 2005/vol. 58, issue 20

This article orginally appeared at The Hockey News Ottawa, where you'll find all the latest Senators news:
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