OSTRAVA, Czechia (Hockey Canada) – Canada’s national Para ice hockey team earned a silver medal at the 2022 International Para Hockey Cup, falling 4-0 to the United States in the gold medal game on Friday night.
Canada showed big improvement over its 8-2 round robin loss to the Americans earlier in the tournament.
“The effort today was tremendous,” said Canada’s head coach Russ Herrington (Unionville, Ont.). “We did a great job of focusing on what we could control, and for the most part everyone played their best game of the tournament.
“We came with some confidence, and we put ourselves in a position to have a good outcome, unfortunately the score just didn’t reflect that.”
Griffin LeMarre earned the shutout to cap a perfect 5-0 record for the Americans at the event. Canada finished with a 3-2 record, with the only two losses coming at the hands of their American rivals.
Jean-François Huneault (Saint-Eustache, Que.) turned aside 20 shots for Canada, while Zach Lavin (Essex, Ont.) led all Canadian skaters with 22:22 of ice time.
“I’m proud of the way we stayed present and focused on the task at hand, and to me that was the biggest area of growth over the course of the last month,” Herrington said. “We have a lot of new players, and this was a valuable experience, playing games in a terrific atmosphere.
“There are a lot of positives here, especially considering the limited time we’ve had together as a group.”
Team IPH (comprised of players from Germany, Norway, and Slovakia) captured the bronze medal with a 3-2 win over Czechia earlier in the day.
Canada will now turn its attention to the 2022 Para Hockey Cup, taking place November 27 to December 3 in Bridgewater, N.S. where it will take on Italy, Czechia, and USA.
