It was Canada Day in December.
A sea of red and white — fans clad in Canadian national team hockey jerseys with name bars spanning the generations from Gretzky, Crosby and Iginla to Price, Horvat and Hicketts — filled Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre on Wednesday as host Canada launched its pre-tournament road to the 2019 IIHF world junior championship.
Switzerland scored first but Canada more often in a 5-3 victory.
“To have 7,000 people come out — it was an outstanding environment for 5 p.m. on a Wednesday,” said Canadian head coach Tim Hunter.
Las Vegas Golden Knights-signed Cody Glass of the Portland Winterhawks was named Canadian player of the game with a goal and assist.
“Even though it was pre-tournament, you got chills when you stepped onto the ice,” said Glass.
“Usually, I come in here as a [WHL] rival with Portland against Victoria [Royals], so this was great.”
Canada, however, saw a 4-1 lead whittled to 4-3 at the end of the second period despite widely outplaying the plucky and patient Swiss.
“I liked our first and third periods but we took our foot off the gas in the second period. It’s a 60-minute game for a reason,” said Hunter. “At the end of the second period, I asked for maturity and leadership, and we finished the game in the right way,” said Hunter.
“I hope that was our worst game throughout this process. It’s a work in progress and gave us some coachable moments for the video session tomorrow.”
It was not an auspicious start for Canadian goaltender and Vancouver Canucks-signed Michael DiPietro as Canada outshot Switzerland 40-17.
“It was a weird game with lots of bounces. There is definitely room for improvement in parts of my game,” said DiPietro, who made only 14 saves.
“It was good to get the nerves out. As the game went on, I felt more comfortable.”
Swiss head coach Chris Wohlwend was entertaining in describing the differences between Canada and Switzerland in hockey.
“Fifty per cent of our players are not used to playing on a smaller ice rink while Canadians play on it since they were six years old,” he said.
“We need two or three games to slowly get used to having less time and space. North American players play on this every night and that’s a huge benefit for them. There are 337 Canadian players in the NHL and 13 Swiss NHL players. There are 400,000 Canadian [youth] players and 16,000 in Switzerland,” added Wohlwend.
“Canada should beat us 10-0 every night. Just as Canada would have no chance in a yodel competition against us. That we made it a close game was unbelievable.”
Maxime Comtois of the Drummondville Voltigeurs of the QMJHL, who began the season with two goals and seven points in 10 NHL games with the Anaheim Ducks, led Canada with two goals and two assists.
“We came out hard in the first period and were really good. But [the second period] was not the way we wanted to play,” said Comtois. “So, we’ll figure it out tomorrow in practice and the next game [pre-tournament Friday at 5 p.m. against Slovakia at the Memorial Centre].”
Comtois is the lone returnee from last year’s Canadian gold-medallist team. The rest of the players are quickly learning that national team play is a whole different beast than club play.
“We’re still trying to figure out everybody’s tendencies,” said Comtois.
Owen Tippett, taken 10th overall in the 2017 NHL draft by the Florida Panthers, and Boston Bruins prospect Jack Studnicka also scored for Canada. Valentin Nussbaumer, Philipp Kurashev and blueliner Tobias Geisser scored for Switzerland.
