While in Russia they celebrated the New Year or already woke up after the celebrations, an event took place at the Youth Hockey World Championships in Vancouver, which could have been more important than the final match. The Russian national team met on the ice with the Canadian team to challenge first place in the group stage.

You can talk a lot about the symbolism of this game, about its huge psychological component - at any level, the hockey confrontation between Russians and Canadians is a classic, and Valery Bragin's charges have not won in it for five years.

But this match had an important tournament value - the winner got the Slovakia team as rivals in the quarter-finals, and the loser could get the USA or Finland. Already for this, on the last day of the outgoing year it was worthwhile to go all out on the ice.

Russian hockey players for the first time had to play in the presence of more than 17 thousand fans, most of whom did not support them at all. It cannot be said that in the very first minutes of the match Canadians began to put pressure on the gate of Petr Kochetkov in their corporate style, but they achieved their quick goal.

Whether the pre-match excitement, or the pressure of the stands really did their job - defender Daniil Zhuravlev did not keep the puck in his circle of the throw-in, and after a couple of seconds Cody Glas struck an unsung biting throw. Although Vancouver was still early evening, for the Canadian fans, the New Year began in the third minute of the match.

But they did not have long to be happy. Immediately, Morgan Frost, in accordance with the rules, attacked Zhuravlev, for which he received not just a small fine, but also a ten-minute increase to him. At this World Cup, Valeriy Bragin’s wards rarely realize the majority, but they always take advantage of their chance when circumstances require it and the score is on the scoreboard. The match with Canada was no exception - Vitaly Kravtsov moved the puck through the entire foreign area so that Grigory Denysenko scored in the style of Alexander Ovechkin. Already in the sixth minute, the Russians equalized.

Then there was an episode, thanks to which all hockey fans will remember this match. The captain of the Canadian national team, Max Komtua, began to cling to the Russians and got the go-ahead from his colleague Klim Kostin. To the surprise of even the owners of the ice, Komtua from a light push into the hull immediately found himself on the ice. The judges removed both hockey players - one for being rude and the other for a simulation. Until the end of the first period, Komtua, whom Kostin later compared with the football player Neymar, also earned a mutual deletion on Stepan Starkov.

I’m waiting for you. Of you see out there pic.twitter.com/OLGpH5yZwO

- Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) January 1, 2019

The second third of the match was decisive for the Russian team - the Canadians spent much brighter than 20 minutes trying to regain their advantage in the long run. The “maple leaves” threw Bragin’s charges with a score of 13: 4, but were never able to reprint Kochetkov’s gates. If it were not for the optional removal of Vasily Podkolzin, who, from constant rudeness on the part of his rivals, began to lose his nerves, one could say that from the point of view of defense, the period was perfect for the Russians.

The final segment of the match could cause some concern - on the eve of the Russian team had a tough match with Switzerland, and the Canadians enjoyed a day of rest. However, contrary to any logic in the last period, it was Bragin’s charges that flew on the ice. But Pavel Shen, and so far floated - in the 51st minute, he gave an incredible breakthrough, starting before his blue line. The forward pulled off the entire Canadian national team and did not have the opportunity to give the puck to one of the partners, so he continued the race and delivered an accurate throw from someone else's penny. With such an incredible goal, the Russian team took the lead.

Canadians demoralized such a turn of events — for a few more minutes they only did what they defended, trying to prevent such a goal from happening again. The main time of the match was coming to an end. The Russians had the opportunity to distinguish themselves again, the moments at the gates of Michael DiPietro arose quite often. Only with his replacement for the sixth field player, Canadians launched a counterattack, but did not succeed at all.

The Russian national team won a strong-willed victory with a score of 2: 1 and completed the group stage with perfect statistics - 12 points out of 12 possible. Wards Bragin start the playoff match with Slovakia, which will be held January 2 local time, when Russia has already come a new day. Russians can now meet Canadians only on the last day of the World Cup.