Canada isn’t supposed to lose at hockey, so when it happens it always comes hand-in-hand with a scapegoat. At the 1998 Nagano Olympics, it was Wayne Gretzky’s absence from the semi-final shootout against the Czech Republic. In 2006 it was the team’s age. With Canada failing to win Gold at the World Junior Championships for the past five years there have been a lot of scapegoats. More often than not, however, the blame falls on the goaltending.
“In any other sport, like football or baseball, the first man to be blamed is the quarterback and the pitcher if there is something wrong happening,” explains former Canadian World Junior goalie Olivier Roy to Last Word On Sports. “In the World Juniors, Canada always has the top players, so they expect the goalie to bring the [Gold Medal] with them.”
Three years ago Roy played for Canada at the 2011 World Junior Championships in Buffalo. He opened the tournament well with a 6-3 victory over the Russians and a 7-2 win over the Czechs. It looked like he had won the starter’s job until Canada fell 6-5 in a shootout to Sweden in their final game of the round robin. Mark Visentin tookover from there and ran with it, all the way until the third period of the Gold Medal game. Canada, up 3-0 at that point, would infamously allow the Russians to score 5 goals in the final frame, Visentin would take the blame.
This is when Canadian goaltending truly became a discussion point. Based on how they have fared in elimination games in their five years without a gold medal, that concern is warranted. Including that game, Canada has been scored on 27 times, an average of just under 6 goals. They have been outscored 27-15. Roy, however, insists that he is not worried about the state of Canadian goaltending.
“You look at the goalies they pick up every year, before the go into camp, before they are selected by Team Canada,” says Roy, “they have all proven themselves through international tournaments and [major junior] before.”
That assessment is correct. Looking at this year’s tournament, Zach Fucale already played in last year’s World Junior Championship and has a Gold Medal from the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament. With the Halifax Mooseheads he has won the Memorial Cup. Eric Comrie also has a Gold Medal at the Ivan Hlinka tournament, and led the WHL in save percentage last year with the Tri-City Americans.
Roy does, however, believe that the new rule the CHL has put in place to ban import goalies will help improve Canadian goaltending even more. The rule effectively creates more jobs for young Canadians that had been taken away by foreign goaltenders in the past. According to him, this will be especially beneficial in terms of giving 16-17 year old Canadians playing time. Roy was given a chance at that age with the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles of the QMJHL.
He is now a member of the Idaho Steelheads, the ECHL affiliate for the Edmonton Oilers, the team that drafted him in 2009. To this day, he maintains the importance of lessons he learned at the World Junior tournament. He particularly points out the importance of playing with guys who have NHL experience, or are obviously six months away from getting some.
“How they treat themselves at the rink, how they handle themselves and prepare for games,” explains Roy of what players like Brayden Schenn taught him. “It was something I really picked up, how to prepare myself for [important] games.”
For Comrie and Fucale, every game at this year’s tournament will be important because their performance could dictate whether or not they play in the knockout rounds. This was also the case for Roy with Visentin, but in 2011 it was slightly different. Prior to the tournament Calvin Pickard and J.P. Anderson were also in the conversation, making life more stressful. Roy believe Canada has finally found a winning formula by picking two goalies from the start.
“It makes for less pressure in camp,” explains Roy. “They both know that they have made the team, they don’t know who is going to start the tournament but they know for sure they’ve made the team, and they will have a chance to represent their country. That’s a big load off of their shoulders.”
Asked if he had any advice for Canada’s two goalies heading into the 2014 tournament, Roy offered the following:
“Don’t put too much pressure on yourself,” he says. “I think if they just play like they have in the past I’m sure they are both going to be fine. They both deserve to be selected. Just trust that the team in front of you is going to do their job, and have fun and do yours. That’s probably the best way to bring back Gold to Canada.”
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