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Canada crushes U.S. 4-1 in WJC semifinal; America will face Sweden in bronze medal game Wednesday

canadacrushesus

James O’Brien

In a rare moment for American hockey, the United States World Junior team went into tonight’s semifinal game against Canada as the prohibitive favorites. After all, the U.S. team boasted more returning players from last year’s gold medal winning team than the Canadians brought back from their runner-up squad.

Instead of earning the right to play in back-to-back gold medal games, the Americans were absolutely out-classed by the Canadians by a score of 4-1 in front of a pro-Great White North crowd in Buffalo.

Sometimes the scoreboard or box score doesn’t tell the story of a game, but in tonight’s contest, the Americans were lucky to only lose by three goals. The Canadian team dominated from the very beginning, taking a 2-0 lead in the first period as their opponents looked flat.

U.S. goalie Jack Campbell might be the only American who truly came to play for the red white and blue in this one, but he couldn’t pull a Jim Craig to keep them in a wildly out-matched contest. He made 37 out of 41 saves while his counterpart Mark Visentin had a leisurely night for the most part, stopping 22 out of 23 pucks.

Canada scored the first four goals, with Curtis Hamilton, Quinton Howden, Ryan Johansen and Zack Kassian finding the net. Flower Mound, Texas native Chris Brown scored the lone U.S. goal when the game was well out of reach.

Team Canada will face their long-time international rivals from Russia in the gold medal game while the United States must settle for a bronze medal matchup against an angry Swedish team. Both games will take place on Wednesday and will be available to U.S. fans via the NHL Network.