Canada blanks Czechs to reach final at Para ice hockey world championships

BUFFALO – Liam Hickey and Adam Dixon scored 18 seconds apart in the first period as Canada defeated Czechia 3-0 on Friday afternoon to reach the final at the Para ice hockey world championships.

The Canadians, the defending champions, face their archrival USA in the gold medal game set for Saturday at 4 p.m. (ET). You can watch live at USAHockeyTV.com.  The U.S. defeated China 6-1 in the other semi.  The Czechs face China for bronze.

Tyler McGregor scored a power play goal midway through the second period to add insurance.  Adam Kingsmill stopped all eight shots he faced as Canada hopes to repeat its performance from a year ago in Calgary. It beat the U.S. 2-1 in that final, Canada’s first gold in seven years.

‘’If we own the blue lines, we will own the game,’’ said Canada’s head coach Russ Herrington about Friday’s semi. ‘’We just kept building up momentum, wave after wave and line after line, all to do the same job. Credit to the leaders and the players for adopting that mindset and believing in it.’’

The Czechs, third at the worlds last year, continued to test Canada physically throughout the game but it was to no avail.

‘’That is our brand of hockey,’’ said McGregor. ‘’Right from the opening faceoff we got in on the forecheck, we were physical and that’s where we created our offence from. Czechia played hard tonight. Their goalie made some big saves (he faced 25 shots) and for us to have that kind of game is huge.”

Hickey lauded Canada’s discipline.

“We came out flying and kept our composure all night,’’ he said.  ‘’When we take over games early, there isn’t much that can slow us down and I think we did a great job right from the start.’’

The top five teams in the tournaments also qualify for the 2026 Paralympic Winter Games. Canada, USA, China and Czechia all clinched their spots after their second wins on Sunday.  Germany added its name winning the fifth place match. The B pool worlds in September will determine the other three entries.

All 20 tournament games this week are available via livestream at USAHockeyTV.com.

For more information: https://hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/team-canada/men/para-hockey/2024-25/world-championship/stats/team-rosters?teamid=249