OTTAWA — For the true hockey fan, there is nothing like attending the World Junior Hockey Championships.  Oh sure, there are some better ice hockey tournaments to attend, such as the Winter Olympics, where the very best players in the world face each other (when the NHL allows it), the Stanley Cup playoffs, where the very best NHL teams face off and of course, for us Pioneer fans, the NCAA Frozen Four, where the top college teams grapple for national glory.

But for sheer global hockey drama, the World Juniors provides all the best young players (under 20) in the world outside of the NHL, playing for international glory (and their professional futures) amid the extreme scrutiny of global hockey brass and media. It’s a true pressure-cooker environment, and since the players are still mostly teenagers — their young mistakes add a higher level of unpredictability which, in turn, ratchets-up the potential drama. Sprinkle in the emotion of full arenas of dedicated fans dressed in national team jerseys from 10 different countries and teenage teams full of national pride and you have a recipe for some unforgettable hockey.

I’ve been fortunate to attend several of these tournaments over the years, either in a professional employment capacity, or more recently, as a pure fan of the game. Of all of them, my favorite World Junior tournaments are those staged in Canada.  Why? Because of all the hockey-playing nations, Canadian fans regard hockey as a critical element of its own national culture. Hockey is the top sport in the country (and it’s not close) so hockey fans enjoy the primacy of the game everywhere they turn, much like football dominates American culture. Hockey is a virtually a form of religion here, and the world juniors is a big part of that fervency.  In fact, Canadian TV (Especially TSN, the ESPN network equivalent in Canada) has elevated the World Juniors as appointment TV here for the last 30-35 years, every holiday season, and every Canadian city tries to outdo each other in hosting this two-week tourney drama, as Canada gets to host about 50% of the tourneys, due to all the revenue produced.

Attending a couple of Team USA games this week in Ottawa, the national capital city of Canada, has provided great hockey and emotional swings. On Saturday, Dec. 28, I had the chance to see Team USA thump a surprisingly good Latvia team 5-1, and just 24 hours later, I saw Team USA lose an excruciating overtime heartbreaker to Finland, 4-3.  

Ottawa, the cosmopolitan seat of the federal government in eastern Ontario is a city of over a million people, but it didn’t feel that way, even with thousands of hockey fans in town from all over North America and northern Europe.  It was fairly quiet, with rainy, foggy winter days with temperatures in the 20s and 30s. In Ottawa, everything is presented in both English and French, not just because these are two official languages of Canada, but because Ontario is in English-speaking Canada, and French-speaking Quebec sits just across the Ottawa river.

The primary arena where the USA plays in its group games is the 19,000-seat Canadian Tire Center (The NHL home of the Ottawa Senators) and it sits some 17 miles outside of downtown Ottawa, in the deep western suburbs. Those fans who don’t have a car crowd onto free fan shuttle busses for an 80-90 minute drive from downtown, winding from one suburban park-and-ride to another before finally arriving at the arena.  There were 13,000 fans in the house for USA vs. Latvia, and nearly 17,000 for USA Finland. Canada games are all sold out, with 19,000+ and ticket prices starting at $225 for the US vs Canada game tonight on the secondary market.

Once there, I was famished and took advantage of a Canadian arena food specialty — poutine, a french Canadian concoction of french fries topped with brown gravy and cheese curds, which tastes much better than it sounds.  Paired with an ice cold Molson beer, I was ready for action…

Of course, as a Denver Pioneer fan, these World Junior games hold more interest than ever, because US (and DU) coach David Carle is trying to guide this USA team to a back to back gold medals, sandwiched around last season’s NCAA title coaching the Pioneers.  Seeing perhaps the world’s best young coach outside the NHL is a treat we Pioneers fans take for granted.  Also seeing Pioneer Zeev Buium score against Latvia and receiving more ice time than any USA player brought a jolt of Pioneer pride to the experience.

With DU facing-off against home favorite Canada on New Years Eve for the top spot in Group A, Carle remains optimistic. “We need more consistency up and down the lineup and I shared that with the team after the game,” said Carle, after the Finland loss. “I was proud of the comeback in the third, and particularly our penalty kill. We’ll continue to work on coming together as a group and I have confidence in our guys that we can get to where we need to be.”

Puck Swami is a longtime DU fan and alumnus. He shares his views periodically here at LetsGoDU.