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Monday, April 28, 2008

More Sports Humiliation for Russia

A massive, totally humiliating shut-out against Russia. Ouch. In Russia. Double ouch! In ice hockey. Triple ouch! The glory of Vladimir Putin's Russia continues unabated. The Vancouver Sun reports:

Brayden Schenn could barely believe his ears. What started as a pro-Russian crowd was boisterously backing the Canadians by the end of Wednesday's final at the under-18 world hockey championship.

Canada blasted the host team 8-0 at Tatneft Arena in Kazan, Russia.

"The Russian fans, near the end of the game, started cheering for us when we were scoring," said Schenn, a Saskatoon-born-centre with the Canadian team," I don't think the Russian players appreciated that, so they were trying to stick up for themselves. But we held our own. That's what we do."

The Canadians fell 4-2 to Russia during the preliminary round, but emphatically avenged that loss Wednesday. Schenn scored his first goal of the tournament during Canada's five-goal first period. His forechecking forced a turnover and then the crafty centre deked to his backhand and beat Russian goaltender Alexander Pechurskiy. Schenn added an assist on Canada's seventh goal, an even-strength tally by Brandon McMillan with 3:39 left in the second. "Right after McMillan's goal, they started cheering for us. We were surprised and shocked," said Schenn. "Having 10,000 Russians cheer for you is definitely a good feeling."

Regina Pats sniper Jordan Eberle netted a pair of goals for Canada. Taylor Hall, Tyler Cuma, Corey Trivino and Nicolas Deschamps also scored. Canadian goaltender Jake Allen stopped 29 shots to earn his second shutout of the tournament.

Schenn is the second member of his family to win a world hockey title this year. His brother Luke, an 18-year-old defenceman with the Kelowna Rockets, helped Canada win the world junior championship in January. The elder Schenn previously helped Canada win the 2006 junior World Cup and the 2007 Super Series against Russia.

"I'm sure there's always room for more gold in the Schenn household," Brayden said with a laugh. "Being able to match [Luke] with a gold medal is a great feeling. He deserves a lot of the credit because he's helped me out a lot throughout the year."

Brayden Schenn made a name for himself with the Brandon Wheat Kings this season. He led all Western Hockey League rookies with 71 points in 72 games. He was also one of only four 1991-born players to crack Canada's roster, which won its first under-18 world title since 2005.

"Getting to play in this tournament as an underager is really going to help me," said Schenn. "It's a great honour to play for Canada and win a gold medal."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And to think the US was beaten by Russia........ ha ha ha.
Good for them they didn't have to play against Canada... that would have been, like, 20-nil?

La Russophobe said...

We'd like to suggest that, before you comment -- in order to keep yourself from looking like such a total fool and ignoramus -- you actually pause to think just a few minutes before writing. Maybe try some deep breathing.

The point of this post isn't simply that Russia lost, which could happen to anyone, but that it lost IN A MAJOR NATIONAL SPORT (most people in the USA couldn't care less about hockey) ON ITS HOME ICE. Americans losing in Russia to countries that are crazed about hockey isn't quite the same as Russians doing it, especially not when Russia plans to host the Winter Olympics in the near future.

Once again, instead of calling for reform by Russia and improvement, you seek to rationalize Russian failure. Only a great enemy of the Russian people would do such a thing. Why do you hate them so much? What did they ever do to you?