SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. -- The stage is set for a possible all-Canadian semifinal at the 2009 world junior 'A' hockey challenge.
Canada West (1-1), which closed out round-robin play with a 6-3 win over Sweden on Tuesday afternoon, will take on Belarus (0-2) in a quarter-final game Thursday at 6 p.m. ET. A Canada West win will mean a semifinal showdown with Canada East on Friday.
Canada East went 2-0 at the 19-and-under tournament and earned a bye into the semifinals.
"For some of these guys it's a huge stage," said Canada West goaltender Sean Bonar, referring to the sudden-death playoff round. "Lots of these guys have been in the exact same situation with their club teams in the playoffs or a Game 7. It's nothing alien to us."
The United States (1-1) will take on Sweden (0-2) in the other quarter-final on Thursday at 1 p.m. The winner will meet Russia (2-0) in Friday's first semifinal at 1 p.m.
The United States defeated Belarus 6-1 in the round-robin finale Tuesday night.
Against Sweden, Canada West started slowly and was outshot 12-7 in the first period.
"We came out a little rusty," said Bonar, who finished with 33 saves and has allowed five goals in two games. "You always have to be ready for that as a goaltender to have some tough shots right away.
"It was nice to keep the boys in it, we got a goal at the end of the period and came out even, which is a great result after a period like that."
After the Swedes got on the board first, Cody Kunyk's power-play goal at 19:44 allowed Canada West to escape the first period with a 1-1 tie.
"It was just a great (faceoff) win by the centreman, Connor Jones, he put it back to defenceman (Mathew) Bodie, and he made a heads-up play because I was screaming my head off," said Kunyk. "I wanted it and I put everything I had into the shot, and it ended up going into the net."
The goal came six seconds into the man advantage and set a tournament record for the fastest goal to start a power play.
"Really?," asked Kunyk when told of the record. "That's pretty neat."
Teammate Curtis Gedig would tie that record at 19:09 of the second period. Gedig walked in from the right point and fired the puck through heavy traffic past Sweden goaltender Oskar Ostlund.
Bodie, Daniel Carr, Kellen Jones and Clarke Breitkreuz also scored for Canada West. Adam Almquist, Sebastien Dyk and Joakim Nordstrom replied for Sweden.
"We were a team that battled pretty hard," said Canada West head coach Rylan Ferster. "We blocked a lot of shots, our (penalty killing) was pretty good and finally our power play got a couple of goals.
"In the first game we didn't have that and that's important in a tournament like this."