Canada blows out Germany en-route to gold medal berth

Billy Bridges (Summerside, PE), Jeremy Booker (Ajax, ON) and Marc Dorion (Bourget, ON) all scored twice in a seven-goal first period as Canada rolled to a 9-1 win over Germany at the World Sledge Hockey Challenge on Friday night, advancing to Saturday’s gold medal game against Norway.

Dorion finished off his hat trick in the second period for the Canadians, while Greg Westlake (Oakville, ON) scored his team-leading fourth and fifth goals of the tournament in the win.

Benoît St-Amand (St-Hubert, QC) replaced starting goaltender Paul Rosen (Thornhill, ON) after the opening period, in which Germany failed top register a shot. St-Amand stopped six of the seven shots he faced over the final 30 minutes.

Bradley Bowden (Orton, ON) picked up three assists in the win, tying him with Bridges for the team lead with four helpers.

Gerd Bleidorn scored the lone goal for the Germans, who will face the USA on Saturday afternoon for the bronze medal.

The Canada-Norway gold medal game will be a rematch of arguably the best game of the round-robin. Westlake scored the overtime winner as Canada topped the defending world champions 4-3 on Wednesday night.

The puck drops at 4:00 p.m. PST on Saturday at what is sure to be a jam-packed Capital News Centre in Kelowna.