Rewind.
Game sheet: Dustin Tokarski, Mem Cup MVP from Spokane, gets the start. Under-sized, not many scouts buy him as a frontline prospect, but most big-game experience here.
1:00 mark Cody Hodgson takes a minor. First Canadian PK blueline, Colten Teubert and Thomas Hickey. Look for them to be the shutdown pair, first option if Canada is up a goal late in a game down the line.
Third minute: John Tavares gets a PK shift. That would be unthinkable a year ago when he was a pure PK specialist as 13th forward.
Six minutes in: Windsor's Ryan Ellis is back on the point of PP as expected. Just a wizard. Count the mistakes he makes in this tournament--over/under 2. Slick game management in with the big kids.
Thirteen minutes in: JT makes magical pass through traffic to Angelo Esposito crashing net. Near miss. Small sign of chemistry developing.
Fourteen minutes in: PK Subban caught pinching--just the first time--Vladimir Ruzicka (not the old one, a new one) sprung for a breakaway. Tokarski save, Subban taking a penalty.
Seventeen minutes in: David Stich of C-Rep lines up Jamie Benn -- Benn gets his head out of his skates at the last minute and knocks unsuspecting Stich reeling.
Nineteen minutes in: Zach Boychuk has yawning cage at a sharp angle--almost puts it into seats.
19:57 JTcuts from right wing into the slot and wires shot past Tomas Vosvrda. 1-0 Canada. A pure finisher's goal, a great start for Tavares and Canada. To that that point it was an indifferent period by the hosts. Typical with the Czechs, ever Canada's problem team at these tournaments. The Czechs have a way of sucking the oxygen out of the arena.
Intermission: Crowd exhales. Tight start for the home team.
Second period.
2:09 2-love, JT again. Another clinical finish. Call it a trend.
Four minutes in: Tomas Vincour squeezes Angelo Esposito like an accordian along the boards.
Esposito's next shift: 3-doughnut. Tavares hypnotizes lone Czech d-man back ... something like Meadowlark Lemon on a guy off the Washington Generals' bench. Finds Esposito with a no-look pass, slick finish. Three nice-looking goals but this was the best. For all the focus on his scoring, JT can really deal it.
8:13 4-naught Ryan (Paperboy) Ellis pinches ... if he pinched any deeper he'd be behind the net. Ellis collects the loose change around the net like the old sunburnt guy with a metal detector working the beach. Vosvrda can't squeeze. The rout is on.
13:33 5-nada. Brett Sonne creates a turn-over with ferocious forecheck, feeds Tyler Ennis with a perfect pass. It's a light show. I remember watching these two at the summer u-18s in 2006. Sonne was way down the depth chart but played his way into the spotlight. He ended up scoring the biggest goals of the tournament for Canada and played a really rugged two-way game, a first PK guy. I figured he'd be on his way to a break-out season ... didn't quite happen. Seems like he didn't really build on it. Ennis ... I liked him with that summer tournament, even more with Medicine Hat's run to the Mem Cup final in Vancouver in '07. Great motor, fearless, skilled. Taking a guy who might be 5'8" in the first round seems dicey but I still like Buffalo'pick in the last draft.
15 minutes in: JT, a near-breakaway, but a lead pass a little too long is broken up by Czech back-up netminder Dominik Furch. No hat trick this time out.
Second intermission: Hard to believe but some fans venture off into the suburban wilderness to fire up their cars. 19,622 fans, maybe only 18-something stick around for the victory lap.
Okay, it's hard to work up a minute by minute in a blow-out and you'd think it's just garbage time. Not quite. A couple of good moments and one scary one.
2:08 6-goose-egg Chris di Domenico pots one, most of the heavy lifting done by Ennis and Zach Boychuk. Ennis seems to be getting more confident every shift and almost scores moments before.
Other scores: 7-nil Boychuk, a solo effort, looked to be safely locked up in a one-on-one with Czech d-man. 8-nihil Alex Pietrangelo. Rubbing it in: Czech goal disallowed with less than six minutes left. Miracle: 8-1 Tokarski gets turned around and Jan Kana manages to fire the puck from the slot and miss the netminder. Shot No. 22. Kana did raise his arms to the heavens and some brave soul waves a Czech flag.
The most crucial moment came in the sixth minute. Stefan Della Rovere, the Barrie Colts captain and, as noted in these pages previously, the forward most likely to put a dent into somebody on the end boards, blocks a shot and limps off. In a lot of pain, he bobbled to the dressing room. Only guessing how serious it is -- it sure looked worse than a bee getting down his boot. With only 12 forwards on the roster, it could get pretty dire if the defending champs lost a forward or two.
