Katherine Henderson shares the disappointment. The president and CEO of Hockey Canada adds that the national sports organization will do whatever it takes to prevent a repeat.
The country was eliminated from the world junior hockey championship in Ottawa in the quarterfinals for the second time in 12 months earlier this week, an ugly first for the program.
Henderson and his fellow executives held a news conference Saturday ahead of a pair of semifinal games that the tournament hosts will watch from the sidelines.
“Canadians expect to see our country play for a medal every year, and we all take that expectation very seriously,” Henderson said in his prepared opening remarks.
“There will be time to reflect and discuss the next steps of our program.”
Senior vice president of high performance and hockey operations Scott Salmond placed two seats below Henderson in what amounted to a public vote of confidence despite Canada’s back-to-back losses to the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals, including the defeat of the Thursday 4-3 at home. floor.
Canada captain Brayden Yager (11) stands on the blue line with his teammates after losing 4-3 to Czechia in the quarterfinals of the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship, in Ottawa, Thursday, January 2025.
Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
“I’ll sit down with Scott,” Henderson, who noted success at other levels, said when asked what he’s seen from the men’s under-20 team the past two years. “We are going to talk about how to strengthen our programs for this specific tournament that we know is very, very important for Canadians.
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“I know (Salmond) will work tirelessly to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
What happened was a team that fell far short of expectations. Canada assembled a roster that left a lot of offensive talent at home in favor of what management considered a more complete roster.
The results were disastrous.
The Canadians started strong with a 4-0 win over Finland on Boxing Day before a surprising 3-2 penalty shootout loss to Latvia, an unconvincing 3-0 win over Germany and a 4-1 loss to the United States. United on New Year’s Eve. That led them to the quarterfinals against Czechia instead of a lesser opponent.
The lack of offense (13 goals in five games) and an undisciplined parade to the penalty area were Canada’s ultimate downfall.
“I understand the anger, I understand the disappointment and I share it,” Salmond said. “I apologize. Over the next two days there should be buildings full of Canadians cheering on a Canadian team. That’s our job. I apologize for that.
“We will make changes and we will be better.”
Salmond was later asked what that might entail.
“We will analyze our selection process,” he added. “We will see how we form teams. We have done it in the past. “Historically we have had a model in which we built teams based on a kind of ghost squad in which we had skill players, we had management players, we had players who provided energy.”
Salmond then repeated “skill” in terms of the template after Canada clearly focused on a broader range of factors and attributes with this failed iteration.
“We will be criticized and probably should be criticized for how this team was built,” he added.
Salmond said the contract of Peter Anholt, who led the under-20 think tank at the last two tournaments and is also regular manager of the Lethbridge Hurricanes of the Western Hockey League, will expire, while scout Al Murray has one year left. in your contract. deal.
“We will go back and look at the decisions,” Salmond said. “We will take a normal look at the way we build our teams.”
He added that the performance review includes independent analysis, player interviews and a deep dive into analytics.
“We need to look at the process, not just the outcome,” Salmond said. “We need to make changes to improve. We win it or we lose it, but we’re going to spend a little more time and dig a little deeper into what this year is going to be like so we’re better prepared next year.”
ATHLETES COMMITTEE
Hockey Canada announced that eight current and former players have been chosen by their peers to form its new national team athlete committee.
Billy Bridges, Michael Mastrodomenico, Tyler McGregor, Bailey Mitchell, Markus Phillips, Alyssa Regalado, Kyle Turris and Kendra Woodland will each serve terms of several years.
Hockey Canada said the committee, created to represent high-performance men’s, women’s and para athletes, will meet at least quarterly and will be empowered to make recommendations on issues affecting fellow national team athletes.
