Canada to play for Under-18 Gold Medal
Guillaume Latendresse of the QMJHL’s Drummondville Voltigeurs scored the winning goal 5:29 into overtime to lift Canada to a 3-2 win over the Czech Republic in the semi-finals of the Under-18 World Championships in Plzen, Czech Republic on Friday.
Canada will face the United States in the gold medal game on Sunday at 11:00 a.m. (Eastern on TSN).
Daniel Bertram opened the scoring for Canada on a first period powerplay. The Czechs struck for goals a little more than a minute apart late in the second period before Tom Pyatt of the Saginaw Spirit tied it on the powerplay 1:49 into the third period.
In overtime, Latendresse defelected a point shot from Kristopher Letang of the Val d’Or Foreurs past Czech goaltender Ondrej Pavelec.
“The coach said to put it on net and that’s what we did,” said Latendresse, who is tied for the team scoring lead with five points. “It was a lucky goal – I just tipped it and got lucky. It was a big goal and we’ll take it.”
In the other semi-final on Friday, Phil Kessel scored a shorthanded goal and picked up two assists to help the U.S.A. defeat Sweden 6-2.
