While the competition was severely lacking in this eight game series which began two weeks ago in Russia, for Canadian hockey fans, it couldn’t have been any more exciting.

After a scoreless first period, the Canadian squad exploded with three power play goals in the second frame. At 3:43 of the second period, the native of Burnaby, British Columbia, Karl Alzner started the party when he absolutely rifled a shot from the point past Russian goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who was named Russia’s player of the game.

Brandon Sutter notched team Canada’s second goal of the frame, finding a loose puck in front of the Russian net and making no mistake by putting it up and over Bobrovsky. Less than two minutes later, Zach Boychuk scored one of the prettiest goals of the entire series when he took a pass from Zach Hamill and put it top-shelf with the utmost precision from his knees.

Kyle Turris, who was the player of the game for team Canada, added two more goals with the man advantage in the third period. Turris led the tournament in scoring with seven goals. Colton Gillies of Surrey, British Columbia scored team Canada’s sixth and final goal of the game capitalizing on a juicy rebound let out by the Russian goaltender.

The Canadian bench along with the 18,630 fans in General Motors Place almost erupted late in the third period when Canadian forward Claude Giroux was flattened a few seconds after the whistle. For the first time in the series, the gloves were dropped as among others, Luke Schenn, came to the aid of his teammate.

For now, many of these players will immediately head off to their respective professional or junior training camps and will meet again in the Czech Republic come December for the World Junior Championships. The experience that these young men gained in this series under the guidance and leadership of Brent Sutter will only prove to be invaluable as their careers continue to progress.

Coming into this series, some questioned whether the Canadians had enough skill to come out on top just as they did in ’72. But the only question that should be asked now is: “When will they be beaten?”