TSN Hockey Reporter Mark Masters reports on the World Junior Hockey Championship. Team Canada practised on Friday at the Westerner Park Centrium in Red Deer, Alta.
Kamloops Blazers forward Connor Zary woke up early on Friday morning. It was hard to sleep knowing Hockey Canada's final cuts were looming. Then he he heard a knock at the door.
"All the coaching staff and management was outside and Bear [head coach Andre Tourigny] handed me his phone right away and it was my family and I knew," the Calgary Flames 2020 first round pick said. "But when they said those words, that I was going to be part of this team, just, the emotion going through my head and through their faces ... that was special."
This scenario played out at 21 other doorways in the Cambridge Red Deer Hotel as Team Canada's World Junior squad was finalized. Hockey Canada let the parents of the players deliver the news and sometimes they got carried away and skipped a step.
"My mom was on FaceTime and she was cheering and congratulating me and she didn't tell me what she was congratulating me for," Prince Albert defenceman Kaiden Guhle, a Montreal Canadiens first-round pick, said with a smile. "So I had to ask her. She was so happy and it made it extra special."
Making it to the World Juniors in any year is special, but in this pandemic-interrupted season when playing opportunities can't be taken for granted it's even more meaningful. And this Canadian team was especially hard to crack with 20 first-round picks among the 22 skaters on the roster.
"It didn't feel real until I hit the ice," said Saginaw Spirit forward Ryan Suzuki after Friday's practice. "You just see all the talent that's out there ... just how fast-paced the practice is. Right when I stepped on the ice it all hit me at once."
After an emotional day, the focus now turns to building chemistry so this incredibly deep group can live up to the sky-high expectations. There will be another two practices before the team travels to Edmonton to enter the bubble on Sunday night.
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Add it all up and the players only had nine days on the ice during the 26-day selection camp. A 14-day quarantine eliminated much of the opportunity to make an impression.
"This was a deep group," said Alan Millar of the Hockey Canada management team. "It made us have to make some really tough decisions. We had to trust the process and trust the big picture."
"We did a good job at making sure we were staying level and not getting emotional about yesterday," said Tourigny. "It was more what happened in the big picture."
But, still, some players made the most of the four scrimmages. Millar identified seven players, in particular, who helped their cause.
"We're real pleased with the way our goaltenders have come together here the last couple of days," the Moose Jaw Warriors general manager said.
Prince George's Taylor Gauthier, Kamloops' Dylan Garand and Northeastern University's Devon Levi were named to the team on Thursday.
"On the back end, [Halifax's] Justin Barron and Kaiden Guhle are two guys who had real good camps and solidified themselves with our group," Millar continued. "Up front, the NCAA guys, [Wisconsin's Dylan] Holloway and [Boston College's Alex] Newhook have been impressive."
It was, therefore, no surprise that Barron and Guhle remained paired together at Friday's practice.
"It's tough to split them, to be honest," said Tourigny. "Why try to fix something when it's not broken. Right now they're tough to play against. Both of them skate well, have good size, can move the puck so we like what we see so far."
And Holloway and Newhook also remained together on a line with Flames prospect Jakob Pelletier.
"Our line's clicking really well," said Holloway. "Both guys are really fast players so getting in on the forecheck is pretty easy when they're going a million miles an hour. We got good communication on the bench and everything. We just click really well and had good chemistry right off the bat."
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When Suzuki was contemplating his tenuous position at Canada's camp on Thursday, he reached out to someone who could relate: older brother Nick Suzuki, a centre with the Montreal Canadiens.
"I was pretty stressed out thinking about the final cuts so I was texting him and he said, 'You can't worry about that now. You did the best you could and you just have to leave it up to them.' He's always been by my side and always giving me tips."
An 18-year-old Nick Suzuki was cut at Canada's selection camp for the 2018 World Juniors before cracking the roster one year later.
"That first year, after he got cut, he was pretty upset and that just gave him more motivation that next year to not take his foot off the gas that whole camp and [not] leave any stone unturned. The biggest thing he told me going into camp is you just got to make the best of every opportunity and you got to keep going."
Due to a serious eye injury last season, Suzuki missed out on a chance to make the 2020 World Junior team.
"Ever since I got back this was a goal of mine because last year I wanted to come to this camp and make this team," he said.
And now that he's made it, the London, Ont., native is looking to earn some bragging rights over his brother. Nick left the World Juniors without a medal following a heartbreaking overtime loss against Finland in the quarterfinals something his father reminded Ryan of on Friday morning.
"He actually said that Nick didn't get a gold medal so you can one-up him on that so that's what I'm going to try and do here."