World Junior Semi-Finals

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Saturday, January 4th started with us at the larger venue, the Malmo Arena for the 3PM game. Our seats were at the centre line, 2nd row of the upper deck above the penalty boxes. We watched Sweden beat the Russians 2-1 in a game that ended with fighting that will likely result in some suspensions on both sides for Sunday's games. Although we cheered along with the Swedes that were sitting all around us, we secretly hoped the Russians would win as our preference was to play Russia in the medal round rather than Sweden.

Canada played Finland at 7PM and as usual, the stands were FULL of Canadians as well as a lot of Swedes too. It was apparent early on that our boys were not quite up to the task of taking on Finland. And after a couple of bad calls against us resulted in goals for Finland, our boys seemed even more dejected, playing slow and sloppy hockey, completely unable to launch any effective offense or defense and ended up losing 5-1.

Perhaps our earlier secret wish to play the Russians in the medal game worked against us as we are now paired with them for the Bronze medal game Sunday afternoon. Hopefully we'll have some added advantage if Russia actually does have some suspensions from their fight with the Swedes.

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