Friday, August 19, 2022

Notebook: Dufour, Canada to play in semis

Swiss Ice Hockey Twitter
FREDERICTON - William Dufour and Team Canada will face Czechia in the semifinals of the World Junior Hockey Championship on Friday at 5 p.m. Atlantic.

Canada advanced to the final four with a 6-3 quarterfinal victory over Noah Patenaude, Vincent Despont and Team Switzerland on Wednesday. Patenaude was pulled after allowing four goals on nine shots in the first period.

Patenaude finishes the tournament with a 1-2 record to go along with a 4.22 goals against average and a .841 save percentage. Despont, meanwhile, had one assist in five games.
Dufour is averaging a point per game through five contests, scoring twice and adding three assists. The New York Islanders prospect was practicing on Canada's top line Thursday.
Czechia advanced to the semifinals after pulling off a 4-2 upset win over the United States in the quarterfinals. The other semifinal will see Sweden face Finland.

The gold and bronze medal games take place on Saturday.

SECOND ASSISTANT INCOMING
At Wednesday's "Meet the Coach" event at Market Square, new Sea Dogs head coach Travis Crickard confirmed that a second assistant coach, who will focus on defensive play, will be hired.
Mark Lee recently joined Saint John's staff as an assistant coach. Lee, a former PEI Rocket forward and long-time professional player,  is expected to focus on offense and the team's power play.

Saint John struggled with defensive play throughout the last rebuild, only making significant progress over the last season and a bit. The team will look to improve on that during this rebuild.

EASTLINK SCHEDULE
This may have been shared some time ago, but the Sea Dogs will be featured on Eastlink TV's QMJHL broadcasts several times this season.

The following Sea Dogs games will be available for Eastlink TV subscribers:

Friday, Nov. 18 at Halifax
Friday, Feb. 10 at Charlottetown
Saturday, Feb. 25 at Cape Breton
Sunday, Feb. 26 at Cape Breton
Thursday, March 2 at Halifax

NEW NAME
The ice pad at Summerside's Credit Union Place will now be known as Gerard "Turk" Gallant Arena. As Saltwire reports, the former Sea Dogs head coach was in attendance for the announcement earlier this week.
2023 WJC GROUPINGS
Team Canada will not play any of its preliminary or medal round games in Moncton at this winter's World Junior Hockey Championship.

The groupings for the event were announced on Thursday and all of Canada's contests will be played in Halifax. From a news release:

Canada, Sweden, Czechia, Germany and Austria will compete in Group A, with preliminary-round games taking place at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax.

The United States, Finland, Switzerland, Slovakia and Latvia will form Group B and play at the Avenir Centre in Moncton.

A minimum of 10 pre-tournament games will be played in communities throughout New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, bringing the world’s best under-20 hockey players to fans across the Maritimes.

The full tournament schedule will be available in the coming weeks. All games at the 2023 IIHF World Junior Championship will be broadcast on TSN and RDS.

Moncton is expected to host two of Canada's pre-tournament games.

The event takes place Dec. 26, 2022 to Jan. 5, 2023.

FREE TICKETS IN BATHURST
The Acadie-Bathurst Titan have made a bold ticketing move, announcing that "for every paying adult this season a maximum of one child will get in free."

The Titan consider a child to be 11 years old and younger.
It will be interesting to see what this move does for attendance at the KC Irving Regional Centre. Saint John's first regular season game in Bathurst is on Sunday, Sept. 25.

OTHER THINGS
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