For the second season in a row, Denver head coach David Carle has been tabbed to coach Team USA at the IIHF World Junior Tournament in Ottawa, Canada. The tournament will begin on December 26, 2024 and will end with the gold medal game being played on January 5, 2025.
Carle guided the USA to a 6-2 win over Sweden in the final of the 2024 tournament in Gothenburg, Sweden. Carle will return the same staff to pursue the repeat on Canadian turf, always a challenging proposition. Canada was knocked out of the quarterfinals by Czechia in 2024 edition.
The selection continues to raise Carle’s profile on the national and international stage. He will be joined on the bench by assistant coaches Steve Miller (University of Minnesota), Brett Larson (St. Cloud State University) and Garrett Raboin (Augustana University). David Lassonde (USA Hockey) will return as Team USA’s goalie coach while Travis Culhane (Denver) will be the video coach for the second straight season.
USA has never won two consecutive World Titles. Bob Motzko was the coach in both 2017 and 2018, winning gold and then bronze. Nate Leaman took Team USA to gold in the 2021 World Juniors before taking fifth in 2022. Yet another opportunity for Carle to make history.
Top photo courtesy of NHL.com
Love this!
Canada will be loaded next year and playing at home, with 20,000+ at their games on NHL-size ice. They will also have the tourney’s deepest team and a lot of media and fan pressure on it…
DC will have a very good American team under him, but perhaps not as deep as last year’s US squad, so winning gold back-to-back will be very a tough assignment – something no US coach has ever done before. He will need to draw some very special performances to win gold here, and if he does it here, he’ll become an American legend…
Zeev Buium figures to be a leader on this US team. Not sure if any other DU players are viable roster candidates, but this will be a blast to watch…
This is awesome! Congrats DC!!!
Same comment I made last year when Carle was announced as the coach………a spectacular event just got even better. The WJC is one of my favorite events of the year.
Good for DC. What an honor again.
Mixed blessing…With what is certainly to be a very young team again next season, I’m a little concerned about the time away from his DU coaching responsibilities.