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Host, TSN The Reporters with Dave Hodge

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Some want Canada to win the World Junior Hockey Championship more than they want their favourite NHL team to win the Stanley Cup, and they look for players and coaches to criticize when that doesn’t happen. Others call the World Juniors a kid’s tournament and knock anyone, even a television network, for playing it up too big and out of all proportion.

Both viewpoints will exist forever. Some fans go back and forth. The tournament never seems more important than after a Canadian victory, never less meaningful than after a loss. Or vice versa.

Never mind the need for a national celebration if a medal is gold, or a national inquiry if a medal isn’t won. Put aside the arguments about what Saturday’s Canada-Finland game meant and realize how great a game it was. Put it up against anything you’ve seen in this NHL season. It wins. “Thumbs up” to anyone of any age at any tournament who can make hockey look that good.

And if you’re worried that these teenagers, with NHL affiliations already or soon beside their names, can’t handle the big stage, remember the words of Canadian defenceman Joe Hicketts who took the most unfortunate of penalties when he shot the puck the length of the ice and into the stands. Hicketts was able to think back to his days in the bantam ranks when “we all tried to do that, and I never could”. He forced a smile. It should have been felt, and matched, across the country.
 

Mark Your Calendar

When the Ottawa Senators said “Happy New Year,” they could have been excused for muttering “we hope.”

At the beginning of the 82-game season, every team looks at the schedule and sees a particular stretch of games that might present a “thumbs down” problem, especially if things aren’t going well at the time. Sure enough, the Senators had good reason to point to the very beginning of the 2016 calendar and identify the first nine games of January as that key part of their campaign.

Embedded ImageBeginning with tonight’s game in Chicago, the Senators are away for seven of the nine. Included is the longest road trip of the season with games against the three California teams, bookended by stops in Washington and New Jersey. The two home games, which follow tomorrow’s date with the Blues in St. Louis, are against Florida and Boston.

The good news is that Ottawa sits only two points out of a playoff spot. The bad news, apart from the schedule, is trouble on the blueline in the form of an injury to Cody Ceci and Jared Cowen’s Wednesday benching versus New Jersey.

Need you be reminded, there’s just one Erik Karlsson.