Montour: 'Super special' to have Crosby, MacKinnon join Canada for Worlds
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As Team Canada gets set to begin their quest for gold at the 2025 IIHF World Championships, some new additions to roster have reinvigorated an already-talented roster as they aim for a record 29th first-place finish at the Worlds.
Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Jordan Binnington, Marc-Andre Fleury, Brayden Schenn and Jared Spurgeon have all committed to playing for Canada at the Worlds over the past week, joining a team that already featured Macklin Celebrini, Ryan O’Reilly, and Brandon Montour.
Montour joined TSN 1050’s First Up on Friday morning prior to the start of the tournament, expressing his eagerness to represent his country alongside the newly-added reinforcements.
“It’s pretty exciting,” he said. “Guys are fired up to be a part of this group. Obviously we know it’s special that…guys wanted to play this year, have a chance to win gold, and represent Canada and your country.
“It’s a cool thing to do…to have this group is super special.”
Canada missed out on the podium at last year’s tournament, but won gold in 2023 with a convincing 5-2 win over Germany in the final.
The Canadians come into the tournament as -105 favourites on FanDuel Sportsbook, with Sweden and the United States being offered at +430 and +470, respectively, to round out the countries with the top-three shortest odds.
“Just with conversations, you knew they reached out to a number of players. Obviously [with the] playoffs, you don’t know the situation and what teams, [how] series go.
“I met the guys in Budapest and since then, they’ve been working the phones trying to pick up some players, and guys seem like they’re really excited and interested to come to Stockholm and do the tournament this year, so [it’s] pretty cool.”
This is Montour’s second time playing for Canada at the Worlds after previously being named to the team’s roster for the 2019 tournament in Košice, Slovakia.
The 31-year-old defenceman made his international debut for the senior team in a 3-1 loss to Finland, before helping his country to their first win of the tournament in an 8-0 rout of Great Britain.
Montour would suffer a tournament-ending upper-body injury in Canada’s third game of the round-robin, finishing his first Worlds without a point in three games.
Canada would go on to win Group A with 18 points through seven games, before eventually losing in the final to the Finns, once again by a score of 3-1.
Coming off of a Stanley Cup victory with the Florid Panthers last season, Montour will look to add the first international gold medal to his trophy case.
“Sweden is such a nice country, Stockholm is a great city. The talent that’s on this group, especially, is really exciting to kinds see them and see who they are off the ice. But playing with them, obviously they’re incredible players, so that should be super fun.”
Canada opens their tournament against Slovenia on Saturday, with puck drop set for 6:20 a.m. ET / 3:20 a.m. PT from Stockholm’s Avicii Arena. Watch the action LIVE on TSN1/4, TSN.ca, and the TSN App.