S76 WJC Medal Ceremony and Awards Show

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The S76 World Junior Championship Medal Ceremony

 

Saturday, March 20

7pm EST

 

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The S76 World Junior Championship Medal Ceremony

     

Before we begin, I have to give a big shoutout to all our GMs, players, and fans who made this tournament possible. You make this happen. I can shout into the void all I want (and I do!) but you people listening, supporting the teams, hyping the games, and fighting in #trash-talk make this all matter. Thank you!

     

Our Legendary GMs:

Team Asia - Kaleeb the MIGHTY         

Team USA - Hex Rose 

Team Canada GM - Dominic Gobeil    

Team Europe GM - Patrik Laine

Team World GM - Darius Marimoto    

   

 

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The Cheerleader Award

    The Cheerleader Award is something I literally just invented because of the support and awareness needed to make this tournament successful. The Cheerleader Award is for the team who builds the best hype train, screams the loudest, and obsessively cares about the WJC. This year’s Cheerleader Award goes to the GM who made our tournament beautiful. This guy was all over the graphics, creating a tournament logo, some team logos, and the medals that will be presented tonight. Your S76 Cheerleader Award winner is:

Spoiler

@KaleebtheMighty of Team Asia!

 

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Round-Robin Recap

Team Asia had a goofy start to the tournament. By luck of Simon T, the Asian squad played their first FOUR (!!!) games against Team Canada. Normally that would be a death knell for Team Asia, but they rose to the occasion. Not once, not twice, not three times, but four times in a row, Team Asia defeated Team Canada. The first three games were one-goal affairs: 3-2, 1-0, and 6-5. As Team Asia warmed up, they got more and more deadly, crushing Canada 5-1 in Game 4 before dismantling arch-rivals Team Europe 8-3 and then again 7-3. Through five games, both Maksim Yakolevsky and Frank Funk Jr. had racked up four goals, and Team Asia was hot. By the end of the day, Team Asia completely crushed the competition. Only Team USA gave them any sort of scare, and even that game took an extra frame to beat the Asians. Team Asia finished the round robin an incredible 9-0-1.

Team Europe paced the pack of teams that aren’t Asia with a respectable 15 points from a 5-4-1 record. Fun fact: every team except Asia was below 0.500, but Team Europe was the closest to breaking average with five regulation wins. The Europeans played a low-key strategy of lulling the rest of the tournament into a false sense of security. They had one of the worst goal differentials in the tournament, despite opening the tournament with a 7-6 win over Team Asia. They followed up that win with five straight losses, before finishing off with four straight wins. The losses were big: 8-3 and 7-4 to Team Asia; and the wins were tight: 5-4 shootout win over Team USA, 2-1 win over Canada, and a 3-2 win over Team World. Team Europe proved themselves worthy of a bye to the semi-finals by edging out each of the three teams beneath them in the standings in their final round robin games. After taking a while to wake up, the European beast had awoken.

Edited March 20, 2021 by bigAL

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After the top two teams, there were three teams that bunched together. Team World led the final group with 12 points from a 4-6 record. The Worldies were a far better team than their record makes them out to be. When Team World won, they won BIG: they opened with a 2-0 win over USA, then a 6-4 win in the rematch, then 7-3 in the final game against the Americans, before a 6-3 drubbing of the Canadians. When they lost, Team World kept it tight, with the only multi-goal losses coming to Team Asia 6-4 and Team Europe 5-2. All in all, Bobo’s squad had a mighty fine showing through the first ten games.

Team USA was hot on the heels of Team World. Their 4-5-1 record put them one point behind Team World, and one point ahead of Team Canada. Team USA could turn it on when they wanted to, and showed up for big games against Team Asia (a 4-3 OT win) and Team Europe (a 5-4 nailbiter of a win and a 7-4 blowout win). Unfortunately, they couldn’t get it done against the teams they were battling with for that final first-round bye. Team World blanked the Americans to open the tournament before blowing them out again 7-3, and even Team Canada came out of their series with the Americans with a regulation win and a shootout loss. The Americans inability to take points in the easy game put them on the outside of the medal round looking in.

Team Canada tried really hard. They had a 3-5-2 record that put them one point behind Team USA and two points back of a bye to the semi-finals. Team Canada had some epic battles with their equally-matched rivals: there were three games that went to a shootout in the tournament, and two of them involved Team Canada. The Americans eked out a 3-2 win in the tournament opener, but Canada found a way to win the skills competition against Team Europe next. Even Team Asia had a hard time putting away the Canadians in an epic 6-5 battle that went to overtime. Only Team Asia allowed fewer goals through ten games than the Canadians. Unfortunately, it was their scoring that held the team back. Their 24 goals were far away the fewest in the tournament, eight back of the next ranked Americans and 23 fewer than the stellar Team Asia. Their un-winning record set up an All-North America quarter-finals matchup.

[KaleebtheMighty 1,509]

First time in my life being a cheerleader! Thank you!!!

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Oh yeah classic awards show disclaimer: Chime in whenever you want. It's your awards show!

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The Bracket:

The beauty of the WJC is that anything can happen in the tournament portion. The round-robin matters for ranking and byes, but every team enters the tournament with an equal shot at gold.

The tournament starts off with a 4v5 matchup in the quarter-finals. This year, that was an All-North America battle between Teams Canada and USA. Team Canada was technically the underdog by round-robin placings, but these were two extremely even teams. Their foray into the high-stakes playoffs highlighted that equality.

The game started off with a bang, as USA’s Carson Walkers deflected a shot from Breeze Ladrian past Canadian tendy ClapbombsRUs just two minutes into the first. The teams traded chances back and forth all period, but the Americans held the advantage going into the second.

Here, we saw things spice up. Both team’s powerplays were clicking: the American PP got on the board just four minutes in with a John Callahan Jr. marker, and the Canadian PP followed up four minutes later with a Eddie Dams goal to get on the board. Victor Foles stepped up at the 15 minute mark to pull the Canadians even with the Americans. But, like the first, the Canadians headed into the second intermission down a goal thanks to a Magnus Verlander snipe with under a minute left in the period. 3-2 USA going into the third period.

Again, the special teams were making the difference in this game. Canada took advantage of a Jon Webber holding penalty as Joseph Sharkton (SHARKY!) beat Michael Olson cleanly with a huge slapshot from the point at the start of the period to tie things up. Team USA kept the Canadians on their heels throughout the period, but just couldn’t solve ol’ RUsty. This game needed overtime.

The crowd knew who was going to win this game almost immediately. Team USA looked tired. They were hemmed in their end for the whole period as Canada set up and cycled the puck. Canada managed to get line change after line change in the American zone, only broken up by a USA tripping penalty. The game took a turn and looked over as Red Lite got in alone on a shorthanded breakaway, but Clapbombs just wasn’t letting his team lose. Finally, halfway through the first OT, Kevin Wu ends things with a huge clapbomb from the blue line off a beauty of a pass from Braxton Hunter. Canada, high on a dominant overtime period where they outshot the opponents 12-1, earned themselves a berth in the semi-finals.

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The Semi-finals

That excitement for Team Canada didn’t last long. They drew the top-seeded Team Asia in the semi-finals: the same Team Asia who scored a ridiculous 47 goals in their 10 round robin matches. The Asians continued their scoring ways in their first game of the bracket. Four minutes into the game, Team Asia asserted their dominance over the Canadians with goals from Jon Strider and Evgeni Shevkov to take a commanding 2-0 lead. Canada, no stranger to adversity, woke up in the second half of the frame. When Jared Carter took an unnecessary interference penalty, Team Canada’s powerplay got to work. The first PP didn’t get it done, but kept the puck in the zone long enough to get the second team out. As the powerplay clock wound down, Phoenix Dawson threaded the needle on a cross-crease pass that found Hulk Hogan Jr. for an easy tap-in. Just like that, Team Canada was on the board, and they weren’t stopping there. Not thirty seconds later, with HHJ still out on the ice, Brendan Telker scored to even things up at 2. That 2-2 tie carried into the first intermission, with Canada feeling confident about their chances against the big bad Asian machine.

The Asians, however, remembered who they were and didn’t fancy being upset. They hounded the Canadians all period, and were rewarded late in the frame with a goal from Jon Strider on the powerplay. The Canadians were still hopeful through the rest of the period, but a Nathan Steele goal with 40 seconds left in the second took the wind out of their sails. After 40 minutes, Team Asia led 4-2.

When the teams hit the ice for the third, Team Canada looked like a shell of themselves. They managed eight shots in the third, with half of them coming on solo breakaways. Trent Gibson closed the door, and his forwards iced the game with goals from Maksym Jankowski and finally, a third goal from Jon Strider to get the hatty. When the final buzzer went, Team Asia earned their spot in the final by dispatching Team Canada 6-2.

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On the other side of the bracket, two rested teams were facing off. Both Team Europe and Team World got to sit out the quarter-finals. In their first bracketed game, Team Europe reminded everyone that they were here to win. In a trend that continued throughout the medal round, Team Europe came out fast and hard against the Worldies. Phil The Rock Johnson asserted Euro dominance by scoring just two minutes in. Team World put up a fight in the first half of the period, but the overpowering offense of Team Europe snuffed out their hopes fairly quickly. The super-line of Gunnar Odinson, Duncan Idaho, and Paul Atreides combined for 8 points as Atreides, Idaho, and defenseman Battre Sandstrom each scored before the end of the period. Going into the first intermission, the Europeans had a 4-0 stranglehold on Team World.

With such a commanding lead, most teams would have sat back and rested a bit. Team Europe decided that the best defense is a good offense. They spent the entire second period in the Team World end, topping their enemies 23 shots to 2. Only one of those 23 shots went in, as captain Gunnar Odinsson finally got in on the fun with a powerplay goal. After two periods, it was 5-0.

The five goal deficit proved to be too much for Team World to overcome. Jim Allen got a PP marker halfway through the period to spoil the shutout for Aksu Maronen, but Robin Galante Nilsson made them pay for that goal by getting one back minutes later. Peter Louis II added another goal for Team World, but it was too little, too late. Team Europe was heading back to the Gold Medal Game for the second year in a row after beating Team World 6-2.

[KaleebtheMighty 1,509]

Well played Canada!!!

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Medal Round Recap:

BRONZE MEDAL Game

The Bronze medal game was a barn-burner of a match between Team Canada and Team World. Team World came out with a big Zeedayno Chara clapbomb two minutes into the game, but Hulk Hogan Jr. wasn’t happy with that. He put the team on his back, scoring two goals in 12 seconds to pull the Canadians ahead 2-1 by the end of the first.

The second period saw the two teams trading goals back and forth: first the Canadians score, and the Worldies score a minute later; then the Canadians score, and the Worldies counter two minutes later. It’s 4-3 Canada going into the final frame.

The scoring keeps coming in bunches! Vic Foles opens the period with an opening minute (plus 12 seconds) goal for Canada, but Peter Louis II takes it back just sixteen seconds later. Hulk Hogan Jr., first period hero, takes a costly hooking call early in the period, setting up a Team World powerplay. The Worldies set up in the Canadian zone, and pepper goalie ClapbombsRUs. Finally, miraculously, as the first PP unit heads to the bench for a change, Lenny Sanderson dances around behind the net and sneaks a wraparound through RUs’ legs. The 5-5 score would hold up for another 15 minutes, and we head off to overtime with a medal on the line.

Overtime was a wild back-and-forth event. With the long change, both teams exchanged 2-on-1 breakaways one after the other. Clapbombs and World goalie Barry Taffe were making us think this could be a long, long, continuous overtime, until the Canadians got back into penalty trouble again. Victor Foles, two minutes for slashing, at 7:00. I’ll let the radio broadcaster take it from here:

“Team World lining up for the offensive draw. They’ve got faceoff specialist Asher Reinhart out against Canadian penalty killer Green Gaming. Reinhart wins it cleanly, back to Reinhart at the blue line. Reinhart shot, blocked by Nexber. Puck rolls back to Reinhart who winds up for another shot that goes wide. Sanderson collects it in the corner and cycles back towards the dot. Sanderson winds up and SHOT stopped by Clapbombs, REBOUND and THEY SCORED! MIKEY HARRIS PICKS UP THE REBOUND AND BURIES IT PAST CLAPBOMB. TEAM WORLD WINS! TEAM WORLD WINS! TEAM WORLD WINS THE BRONZE MEDAL IN OVERTIME!”

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GOLD MEDAL Game

The gold medal game was as much of a surprise as you can get in these tournaments. Team Asia, laughingstock of the tournament for years, is here in the championship game with a whole bag of Doritos on their shoulders. Team Europe, still stinging from their silver medal last year, don’t plan on going home without gold again. The Battle of the Continents will decide who goes home with a real victory, and who goes home with a moral victory.

Right from the beginning, the answer was clear. Team Asia just ran out of gas. In the first period, the Asian squad registered three shots, and none of them were overly dangerous. Team Europe dominated them offensively, looking at times like the Harlem Globetrotters playing keep away. Gunnar Odinsson finally buried one at the 11 minute marker of the first. Europe’s stellar puck possession forced Asia to take penalty after penalty to stop the European attack. It finally caught up with them at the end of the first period, when Duncan Idaho scored with less than a minute left to put the Europeans up 2-0.

The Asians used their intermission to rally and regroup, and initially it looked like it would pay off. Defenseman Javad Kamkar baited European star Idaho into a reckless roughing penalty, and sent Team Asia to a first minute powerplay. The offensive weapons that stunned the tournament in the round-robin, the same ones that beat Team Europe 8-3 earlier, couldn’t solve European tender Aksu Maronen. Before the powerplay could expire, Asian goalie Trent Gibson rushed into the corner, chasing a puck and trying to spring his forwards while the Europeans changed. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Gibson stickhandled the puck just over the goal line, and was awarded a delay of game penalty. The four-on-four just ended when Team Europe’s Gunnar Odinsson scored his second goal of the game. Things just continued to get out of hand from there. Javad Kamkar got another hooking penalty trying to slow down a breakaway, and the lethal European powerplay didn’t squander their opportunity as Idaho scored his second of the game. Before the period ended, Gunnar Odinsson scored another to complete his hat-trick. By the end of the second, Team Europe was absolutely dominating, with a 4-0 advantage in goals, and a 43-16 advantage in shots. The third period opened with a ‘too-little-too-late’ goal from Team Asia’s Logan Moore, and the Europeans easily skated to the Gold Medal, avenging last year’s loss in a huge way.

For Team Asia, this silver medal means a lot. The standings in the WJC don’t change much from year to year, and experts expected Asia to stay in the outside looking in on the medal round. Asia dominated the round robin, and earned a berth in the finals. Going home with a silver medal is a strong moral victory, and one they will look to build on in S77.

[Bobo 514]

GG’s Canada. Team World comes out with another medal! Let’s go World!

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IT'S COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT NO ONE CAN READ THIS IN DARK MODE........

 

Spoiler

Too bad I worked really hard on the formatting and colour and spacing and sizing and a ctrl+shift+v would ruin all that

 

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edit: the gold medal game is so good it gets posted twice because you can't delete forum posts

GOLD MEDAL Game

The gold medal game was as much of a surprise as you can get in these tournaments. Team Asia, laughingstock of the tournament for years, is here in the championship game with a whole bag of Doritos on their shoulders. Team Europe, still stinging from their silver medal last year, don’t plan on going home without gold again. The Battle of the Continents will decide who goes home with a real victory, and who goes home with a moral victory.

Right from the beginning, the answer was clear. Team Asia just ran out of gas. In the first period, the Asian squad registered three shots, and none of them were overly dangerous. Team Europe dominated them offensively, looking at times like the Harlem Globetrotters playing keep away. Gunnar Odinsson finally buried one at the 11 minute marker of the first. Europe’s stellar puck possession forced Asia to take penalty after penalty to stop the European attack. It finally caught up with them at the end of the first period, when Duncan Idaho scored with less than a minute left to put the Europeans up 2-0.

The Asians used their intermission to rally and regroup, and initially it looked like it would pay off. Defenseman Javad Kamkar baited European star Idaho into a reckless roughing penalty, and sent Team Asia to a first minute powerplay. The offensive weapons that stunned the tournament in the round-robin, the same ones that beat Team Europe 8-3 earlier, couldn’t solve European tender Aksu Maronen. Before the powerplay could expire, Asian goalie Trent Gibson rushed into the corner, chasing a puck and trying to spring his forwards while the Europeans changed. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Gibson stickhandled the puck just over the goal line, and was awarded a delay of game penalty. The four-on-four just ended when Team Europe’s Gunnar Odinsson scored his second goal of the game. Things just continued to get out of hand from there. Javad Kamkar got another hooking penalty trying to slow down a breakaway, and the lethal European powerplay didn’t squander their opportunity as Idaho scored his second of the game. Before the period ended, Gunnar Odinsson scored another to complete his hat-trick. By the end of the second, Team Europe was absolutely dominating, with a 4-0 advantage in goals, and a 43-16 advantage in shots. The third period opened with a ‘too-little-too-late’ goal from Team Asia’s Logan Moore, and the Europeans easily skated to the Gold Medal, avenging last year’s loss in a huge way.

For Team Asia, this silver medal means a lot. The standings in the WJC don’t change much from year to year, and experts expected Asia to stay in the outside looking in on the medal round. Asia dominated the round robin, and earned a berth in the finals. Going home with a silver medal is a strong moral victory, and one they will look to build on in S77.

Edited March 20, 2021 by bigAL

[KaleebtheMighty 1,509]

Sad to lose but congrats again @PatrikLaine!!!

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GOLD MEDAL

Team Europe

GM: Patrik Laine

Captains:

C - Gunnar Odinsson @BOOM

A - Battre Sandstrom @Acydburn

A - Paul Atreides @Mr_Hatter

A - Duncan Idaho @OrbitingDeath

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    SILVER MEDAL 

Team Asia

GM: Kaleeb the Mighty

Captains:

C - Frank Funk Jr. @Rayzor_7

A - Jared Carter @JardyB10

A - Logan Moore @drewowo

A - Javad Kamkar @Parriyah9374

     

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    BRONZE MEDAL 

Team World

GM: Darius Marimoto

Captains:

C - Napoleon Bonaparte

A - Reylynn Reinhart @Ricer13

A - Olof Samuelsson

Edited March 20, 2021 by bigAL

[Ricer13 2,796]

Wait we won the bronze? Wtf haha

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Honourable Mentions

Team Canada

GM: Dominic Gobeil

Captains:

C - Phoenix Dawson @Toast

A - Aurelien Moreau @Frank

A - Brandan Telker @Telkster

 

 

 

 

 

Team USA

GM: Hex Rose

Captains:

C - Magnus Verlander @Jbeezy76

A - Red Lite @Tate

A - Henry Tucker @NSG88

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TOURNAMENT MVP:

    From Team Europe, the tournament scoring leader with 25 points in 12 games, including a ridiculous Gold Medal Hat Trick:

Spoiler

Gunnar Odinsson

 

ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM:

 

 F - Frank Funk Jr., Team Asia @Rayzor_7 (6-12--18)

F - Gunnar Odinsson, Team Europe @BOOM (9-8--17)

F - Maksim Yakolevsky, Team Asia @nepto (11-6--17)
 

D - Javad Kamkar, Team Asia @parriyah (5-14--19)

D - Reylynn Reinhart, Team World @ricer13 (8-10--18)

 

G - Trent Gibson, Team Asia @caboose (.930 SV, 2.87 GAA)

 

ok forum tags stopped working I'll come back and do these after

[Bobo 514]

sorry for the letdown ricer

Edited March 20, 2021 by Bobo

[Laine 1,361]

Well played to all the GMs! Hoping to see everyone back next WJC in some capacity!

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THE BIG BRAIN AWARD

Let’s be honest, our brackets got busted this year by Team Asia, and that was reflected in the BIG BRAINness of the fans.

 

Out of a possible 18 points, our winner earned 9 big brain points. No one got all 5 round robin places nor all 3 medallists. Our winner correctly placed 2 teams in the round robin, and knew Team World was going to get that bronze medal. They saw the future about defensemen scoring, and games going to overtime, and shutouts (not) happening. 

 

The race was close, but one person edged ahead of the crowd. So many people had 7 or 8 points, but one brain rose above the rest and scored that (actually impressive) 50%. This season, the biggest of brains, the future-seer, the predictions wizard is…

Spoiler

@Jbeezy76

 

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And that’s a wrap on the S76 World Junior Championships! Thank you to everyone who made this happen, but especially the unsung heroes @Quikand @rjfryman. Without those two computer whizzes, none of this would happen.

 

Thanks everyone, see you next year, same time, same place!