Canada defeats pesky Czechs to advance to gold medal game at Para Hockey Cup

CHARLOTTETOWN – Canada showed its resiliency in a 3-1 victory over Czechia in a hard-hitting semifinal Friday at the Para Hockey Cup which regroups the top-four teams in the world.

Canada faces its archrival USA in the final on Saturday at 7 p.m. local time at the Bell Aliant Centre. The game will be carried live on TSN 4 and TSN 5 and RDS. The Americans beat China 13-2 in the other semi earlier Friday.

The Canadians, the reigning world champions, were hanging onto a 1-0 lead after two periods before Vincent Boily and Tyler McGregor assured the victory.

The Czechs, bronze medallists at the last two worlds, had a terrible preliminary round this week but returned to the recipe which has given them recent success: rough and tough hockey.

‘’They are a fast and physical team and they showed that tonight,’’ said McGregor, a two-time Paralympian. ‘’They take away time and space and force you to make quick decisions.’’

Which Czech team would show up was the question before the game. In the prelims they lost 9-2 to Canada and 10-1 to the U.S. But in October they took Canada to overtime in the semis before losing 1-0 at the International Para Hockey tournament in their home country.

‘’We just continued to roll our lines, kill off some important penalties and then capitalized on our chances when we needed to,’’ added McGregor about Friday night’s game.

Head coach Russ Herrington says his troops were prepared for a tough match.

“We went into this game believing that it was going to take investment into the process because of how stingy and hard the Czechs play against us,’’ he said. ‘’It was a reminder throughout to just keep playing the right way, keep doing the right things and allow the game to open up when it will open up.’’

Liam Hickey, who forms a super line with McGregor and Dominic Cozzolino opened the scoring with his fifth at the 3:18 mark of the first period with his linemates getting the helpers. Hickey was named Canada’s player of the game.

The Canadians successfully killed two penalties in the second period which also featured a spectacular save by goaltender Corbin Watson on Michal Geier with three minutes left.

They opened the third killing off a penalty after a melee ended the second period. Boily, one of the rising stars on the squad, took a pass from James Dunn just after the end of the penalty kill to put Canada up 2-0.

‘’I’m so thrilled to score such an important goal for the team,’’ said Boily, 25, with four goals and three assists so far. ‘’It gave our team a boost and to keep playing hard to get the win.’’

But 19-year-old Filip Vesely staved off two Canadian defenders in a rush to the net to close the gap back to one.

In his own end, Cozzolino battled fiercely to win a face-off, then fed Hickey who rushed into the Czech zone serving a perfect pass to McGregor who didn’t miss his opportunity for his team leading sixth of the tournament with 8:30 to go.

The Americans have won the last eight editions of the tournament with Canada’s last victory in 2013. McGregor would like that streak to end Saturday night.

‘’We want to leave here with a gold around our necks,’’ he said. ‘’We want to impose our will on this tournament as well. We have full belief and confidence in this team.’’

This past May, Canada beat the U.S. for gold at the world championships. In the prelims this week the U.S., took the encounter 5-3.

Game tickets at the Bell Aliant Centre can be purchased HERE.