If you're not busy from 4-7, watch USA vs. Canada in the World Juniors

It's New Year's Eve and you're probably busy buying liquor, making resolutions, and watching college football, but if you have some free time between 4 in the afternoon and 7 at night, then put on NHL Network and watch Team USA play Team Canada in the World Juniors.

Every player on Team Canada has been drafted by an NHL team, except for the 2 who aren't yet old enough to be drafted. That's how good they are.

How often do we in the US see our sports teams playing the role of David against Goliath? How often are we the plucky underdogs, fighting against all the odds, against a mighty opponent who seems almost unbeatable? Sure, we're massive underdogs in soccer. But in that sport we don't have much of a chance to win. We struggle with Ghana and Mexico. Beating giants like Germany and Spain and Brazil is nearly impossible. But in hockey, we're the underdogs, but we still have a legit chance. We can actually beat Canada.

This is a group stage game. Both Team USA and Team Canada have clinched advancement into the elimination rounds of the 2015 World Juniors. So what's on the line is pride. Two top hockey rivals fighting for pride, holding back nothing because there's nothing to lose. That's a recipe for high quality sports entertainment.

The winner of this game wins Group A and gets a top seed in the quarterfinals. The loser finishes second.

More importantly, the winner will have beaten the loser. In this rivalry, that's serious motivation.

So, if you have some free time from 4 to 7, turn to NHL Network and watch a bunch of young Americans play against a bunch of young Canadians in front of a bunch of older drunk Canadian fans.

If you like hockey, this is as pure and as competitive and as spirited as it gets. No fights, no contracts, no holding back, just a bunch of kids playing for national pride on an international stage.

Happy New Year.

Team USA Wrecks the Czechs, Advances to Olympic Semifinals

This was such an excellent, complete win. Just about everybody who took the ice for Team USA made a significant contribution. The coaching staff also came up with a good gameplan to neutralize the Czech Republic's strengths.

Five different USA players scored goals: James van Riemsdyk, Dustin Brown, David Backes, Zach Parise, and Phil Kessel. Ryan Suter had 3 assists, Ryan Kesler had 2. The US scored 4 of their goals in the dirty area of the ice close to the net. The 5th goal was on a breakaway that utilized the vast width of the European ice sheet.

The US won essentially all of the physical battles. This was spearheaded by guys like Ryan Callahan and David Backes. Brooks Orpik also did some hitting, and some of those hits were legal.

Defensively USA didn't allow the best Czech players the time and space to make plays. Jaromir Jagr only got one shot on goal, as did David Krejci. In the first two periods the Czechs only got 13 shots on Jonathan Quick. And one of those was actually a botched Ryan McDonagh clearance attempt that ricocheted off of Ryan Suter's skate and into the US net.

The only Czechs who were consistent threats were Ales Hemsky and Martin Hanzal (who's so hot right now).

Jonathan Quick didn't have a hard day of work in the office, but he did his job, and didn't make his teammates work harder than necessary. No soft goals.

It's impossible not to be excited by this team. They have a good mix of players who are adept at playing different kinds of hockey. They have a great goalie, strong defense, they block shots, they make hits, they're fast. There's no apparent weakness to exploit, no chinks in the armor.

That being said, their next game is their biggest test. They'll be playing Canada Friday at noon (Eastern) on NBC Sports in a rematch of the 2010 gold medal game. The winner advances to this year's gold medal game, the loser will play for bronze.

Both semifinal games are rematches of the last two gold medal games. Sweden plays Finland Friday morning at 6:30 in a rematch of 2006.

I can't wait. The US women's team will also be playing Canada for gold Thursday afternoon at noon on NBC.

Photo Credit:
Getty Images

Team USA Hockey Invites 48 Players to Camp

Tim Thomas was not one of the 6 goalies invited to Team USA's camp. Jonathan Quick, Jimmy Howard, Ryan Miller, Cory Schneider, Craig Anderson, and 20-year old Josh Gibson were the netminders invited. Gibson was the MVP of the 2013 World Juniors, leading the US to a gold medal.

No Bruins were invited. Which isn't much of a surprise since Torey Krug was the only American on their roster last year. Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, and Milan Lucic were invited to Canada's camp. Claude Julien will be an assistant coach for Team Canada.

Two players from Massachusetts will participate in the US's camp: the aforementioned Cory Schneider from Marblehead, and Keith Yandle from Boston.

Other New England natives involved will be Jonathan Quick from Milford, CT (he also went to UMass), defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk from Greenwich, CT (also went to BU, also has the best last name ever), and forward Max Pacioretty from New Canaan, CT. That's right, the Montreal Canadiens are more American than the Boston Bruins. The Habs have two invitees to the camp.

As you'd expect, there are some great players on the team. The question is will they be great enough to match the likes of Canada and Russia. With Quick and/or Miller in net, anything is possible. Then there's some talented forwards like Phil Kessel, Patrick Kane, Dustin Brown, and Bobby Ryan that will be relied on for the scoring.

Unfortunately, the US's talent isn't as deep as Canada's (Bergeron, Crosby, Toews, Sharp, Green, Subban, Weber, Letang, Nash, St. Louis, Stamkos, Staal, Staal, and Staal) nor is it as strong at the top as Russia's (Malkin, Datsyuk, and Ovechkin).

So goaltending will have to be the difference for the US to win. Relatively speaking, Canada's goaltending isn't that good. They invited Corey Crawford, Roberto Luongo, Braden Holtby, Carey Price, and Mike Smith. Russia, on the other hand, has Vezina winner Sergei Bobrovsky.

Then there's Sweden, who will have Henrik Lundqvist. And Finland will probably start Tuukka Rask or Antti Niemi.

So Canada has the most talented skaters, but some questionable goaltenders. Russia has a goalie, and some studs, then a lot of guys you've never heard of. USA has goaltending, and some solid players, but not the firepower that Canada has. And Finland gets to choose between a Vezina finalist (Niemi) and a Conn Smythe contender (Rask).

Plus there's Sweden, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.

This should be a good tournament.

Full Team USA invitees

World Juniors: Finland 4, USA 1

The US tried to push around Finland, just as they'd pushed around Denmark. It didn't work. Not only did the Finns stand firm, they actually won the physical battles at the half wall. Finland didn't dominate the game as the score might suggest. But they were the better forechecking team. Their goaltending was also superior. Sami Aittokallio made some brilliant saves for Finland, and American John Gibson let a few pucks squeeze through him. Even if he hadn't, the US wasn't going to win.

The American team essentially must win against the Czech Republic Friday afternoon if they want to advance to the quarterfinals.

The Czechs just got beaten 5-0 by the Canadians, but they were playing the second of back-to-back games and looked extremely tired. They'll bring their best game when they play the USA.

Russia beat Slovakia 3-1 and have won both their games, just like Canada. In a bit of a surprise, Sweden needed a shootout to beat Switzerland 4-3.

Photo Credit:
The Canadian Press

It's World Juniors Time!

The best young hockey players (under 20) in the world have converged in Alberta for the 2012 World Junior Ice Hockey Championship. Canada is the favorite to win, not only as the host country, not only as the 15 time winner, but as the most talented team. However, they haven't won since 2009.

There are two groups of 5 teams in the round-robin stage. The top 3 teams from each group advance to the elimination stage, with the group winners receiving byes to the semifinals. Here are the groups:

Group A:
Sweden
Russia
Slovakia
Switzerland
Latvia

Group B:
USA
Canada
Finland
Denmark
Czech Republic

The US has already thrashed Denmark 11-3, while Canada dominated Finland 8-1. Also, Sweden beat Latvia 9-4, and Russia took care of Switzerland 3-0. So no surprises so far.

The US will be playing Canada on New Year's Eve at 8pm. They'll play Finland on the 28th, and the Czech Republic on the 30th.

Other things to look for include some young Bruins and a few local college kids. Russia's Alexander Khokhlachev was drafted 40th overall by the Bruins in this year's draft. 9th overall pick Dougie Hamilton is playing for Canada and scored a goal last night.

The US team has a few New England college kids. BU's Adam Clendening, BC's Bill Arnold scored last night, Vermont's Connor Brickley, and Weymouth's own Charlie Coyle, who used to play for BU until recently, who scored a hat-trick last night.

The WJHC is a fun tournament to watch. The hockey's fast, it's intense, the Canadian crowd will be into it, and the shaky goaltending and inexperienced defense leads to some wide open play and lots of scoring.

The finals will be played on January 5th.

CANADA 4, USA 1

After facing relatively weak competition in the group stage, the US Juniors were overmatched by their Canadian rivals, who finally avenged last year's 6-5 overtime loss in the finals. The Canadians played fast, hit hard, and gave the American skaters no time or space to do anything. Despite having the previous night off, the US were quickly exhausted by the Canadian attack.

Canada plays Russia in the finals on Wednesday night on NHL Network, and if you like hockey, I suggest you watch this game. The US will play Sweden for the bronze Wednesday afternoon, in the game nobody wants to play in.

I only wish Tyler Seguin were in Buffalo with team Canada, getting high pressure experience. Wednesday would be the biggest game of his life. Instead, he'll be watching from Boston, getting ready to play 12 minutes in the massive Bruins/Wild game the next night.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

US VS. CANADA TONIGHT

The US is playing Canada in the semifinals of the 2011 World Junior Championship. The US won all 4 of their group stage games, by a combined score of 15-4. This is a rematch of last year's final, which the US won 6-5.

There's something extra entertaining about the Juniors, which feature players 20 years old and younger. These guys have the raw talent to all be NHL prospects. But they don't have the wisdom yet. Which means they're not the best defensive players in the world.

These guys skate. They're fast, aggressive, hungry. And they can all score. The games are wide open, back and forth, high-scoring affairs. You don't see shutouts. You don't see 2-1 or even 3-2 games.

So watch the US play Canada tonight at 7:30. It's on NHL Network. Don't know what channel that is? Search for "Ice Hockey," and you'll find it.