As no surprise to anyone, the Canadians won the tournament but it wasn't as easy as people thought they would win. The team, packed with many stars including Sidney Crosby, Carey Price, Steven Stamkos and Brent Burns, swept the preliminary round to win their group and secure a spot in the semi-finals. In the semis Canada took on the Russians where Marchand scored twice during the match (both being assisted by fellow Scotian Sidney Crosby and fellow Bruin Patrice Bergeron) on to a 5-3 victory. The win moved the Canadians to the finals against Team Europe.
Team Europe was made of players from the other European countries that weren't already in the tournament. The countries included in this team were Latvia, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. Many were surprised that Team Europe made it to the finals. Their lone loss during the preliminaries was to Canada. In the semis they defeated Sweden in overtime on the back of Tomas Tatar's two goals.
The final was a best of 3 games, meaning a team had to win two out of three games in the last round to win the trophy. Canada came out pretty good with Marchand scoring less than 3 minutes into the first game. The 28 year old than assisted on the last goal of the game on Tuesday night as the red and white won 3-1. On Thursday night Canada got out to a somewhat slow start letting in the first goal of the game and were held scoreless until the last 3 minutes of the game. That's when Bergeron scored to tie the game and the Air Canada Centre erupted with joy. With 44 seconds left in the game Marchand scored a nice wrister in the slot to put Canada up 2-1.
Congratulations to Brad Marchand and Team Canada for proving that hockey is Canada's game and winning the World Cup of Hockey 2016 trophy. Below is a team photo.
 |
| Photo - NHL |
No comments:
Post a Comment