Just because Christmas is over doesn't mean that "the most wonderful time of the year" has to end, too. With the International Ice Hockey Federation's (IIHF) annual U20 tournament stretching from Boxing Day into the new year, the World Juniors Championships (WJC) is arguably one of the most wonderful times of the hockey year.
The tournament is U20, meaning all participants must be under the age of twenty. These young players are often draftees and recently drafted NHL prospects who are still in development. For our young draftees, World Juniors serves as the stage to showcase their play to prospective NHL suitors. With the next draft set in Chicago with the clock down to less than seven months, scouts are crawling around the IIHF ice, compiling their lists of the names they'll eventually call out at the United Center.
With the fate of their hockey careers looming over them, these players hit the ice with a special kind of vigor. A subpar performance in front of a theater of scouts can make or break their draft experience, perhaps serving as the line between going to a top team or a team in the midst of rebuild. These boys are playing for everything at stake, putting everything they've got out on the ice.
As a fan watching from the couch, you'll pretty much get a crash course in which prospects are hot or not. Although extremely important and interesting in concept, watching the draft can be very boring, especially when every name is unfamiliar after the first five minutes. With the draft held in Chicago this year, it's still the opportunity of a lifetime for fans to attend when it's right down the street. Watching WJC will introduce top prospects enough to recognize their name and a summary of their play.
Who knows? Maybe that one kid with that beautiful spin-o-rama game winner will end up on your team.
Aside from the hopeful draftees, national teams also recruit recently drafted prospects who are still developing in major junior and collegiate programs. The Arizona Coyotes' 2015 third overall pick, Dylan Strome, serves as the captain of Team Canada. After a surprising move that sent Strome down after the ten-game grace period, the Mississauga native has been lighting it up as captain of the Erie Otters, his major junior team.
Other prospects to watch out for include Team USA's Charlie McAvoy (Boston Bruins) and Luke Kunin (Minnesota Wild) as well as Team Canada's Jake Bean (Carolina Hurricanes), and third overall pick Pierre-Luc Dubois (Columbus Blue Jackets).
Notable players hailing from Europe include Olli Juolevi (Finland - Vancouver Canucks), Alex Nylander (Sweden - Buffalo Sabres), and Mikhail Sergachev (Russia - Montreal Canadiens).
The Chicago Blackhawks have three prospects lacing up: fifth rounders Matthias From (Denmark) and Radovan Bondra (Slovakia), and fourth rounder Lucas Carlsson (Sweden).
Aside from individual players, WJC highlights the future of hockey and the NHL as a whole. Rewind a couple months back and the U20 tournament becomes reminiscent of a certain team that swept the hockey world. If you watched the 2016 World Cup of Hockey (WCH), you'll remember the tournament's sweethearts, Team North America. The special combination team was created to include both Canadian and American elite players under the age of twenty-four. While very few originally believed in the lovingly dubbed Baby Team, Team North America won everyone's hearts with raw, innovative, and chaotically successful style of play.
The entire tournament highlights young talent with the same daring and brave style of play with that young, rough, and raw style of play. Still in development, you can never expect the same thing from any player. While Alex Ovechkin never passes and always takes the shot from the Ovi spot, WJC players are still finding their sweet spots and still finding themselves as a player. Undefined in style and strategy, every player is trying something new in order to see what fits them best.
Back to the couch, WJC encapsulates the aspects we, as fans, love about hockey year-round. The teams are sanctioned by the IIHF and selected by each country's national organization, the same organization that selects for the Olympics, the World Cup of Hockey, and the annual 20O World Championships in May. It's like a throwback to this past summer's Olympics, where national pride can get overwhelmingly and wonderfully obnoxious.
That's right, let's start up that "U-S-A! U-S-A!" chant right about now.
Additionally, the tournament spans over a short two weeks that calls for days with triple-headers of live game coverage. You can set up at noon and watch WJC all afternoon, sometimes with the option topping it off with an NHL game at the end of the night. For anyone that can't get enough of hockey, the tournament provides a nonstop type of hockey that's normally only found during the Stanley Cup Playoffs and special national tournaments.
Overall, the World Junior Championships provide a viewing experience that any hockey will enjoy, especially in the slow lazy days of winter break and the holidays. So go flip on the TV and watch the game!
The IIHF World Junior Championships can be viewed on TSN and the NHL Network following this schedule.
