2005-06 National Men's Under-18 Team

Canada 3 - Slovakia 1

IIHF World Men's Under-18 Championship
Preliminary Round
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
16:00 (local)
Angelholm/Halmstad, SWE
Angelholms Ishall/Sannarps Isstadion

HALMSTAD, SWEDEN -- Canada opened the 2006 IIHF World Under-18 Championship on Wedensday with a 3-1 win over Slovakia.  Canada was led offensively by forward Justin Azevedo (London, ON -  Kitchener, OHL) who had a goal and an assist and was named Canada's player of the game.

After a scoreless first period of play, Azevedo opened the scoring 1:23 into the second period to give Canada a 1-0 lead.  Slovakia's Rastislav Konecny tied it 1-1 at 6:53 while Canada had two players serving penalties. Canada's Francois Bouchard (Sherbrooke, QC - Baie-Comeau, QMJHL) scored on a 5 on 3 power play midway through the second period, when he one-timed a shot from the side of the net on a pass from Azevedo, to put Canada ahead 2-1. Brandon Sutter of the WHL's Red Deer Rebels scored into an empty net with 32 seconds left in the third period, to give Canada its first win of the Championship.

Jonathan Bernier (Laval, QC - Lewiston, QMJHL) played in goal for Canada, making 34 saves. Canada was outshot 35-30 in the game.

Canada's next game is on Thursday, when it takes on Norway at 4:00pm local (10am ET / 7am PT). Canada will have a practice on Friday, as it is an off-day for the team,  before playing Sweden on Saturday and Finland on Monday to wrap up preliminary play in Group B. TSN will broadcast LIVE, Canada's game on Monday, April 17th versus Finland.