It's hard to say which disappointing finish was a bigger choke.
Last year, an American world junior team that was more stacked on paper than Yorkton's peewee AA team lost to Canada in the semis.
This year, a decidedly less deep team, but one that should have been good enough to reach the final four, bombed out in spectacular fashion by going winless and missing the medal round.
I'm a huge fan of Jack Campbell, in part because of what he did against Canada - twice - at the 2010 tournament in Saskatoon. But no one on this American team looked particularly sharp.
Canada throttled Finland 8-1 in their opener in a game that was surprisingly lopsided. Then the Finns turned around and handed the Yanks a 4-1 loss.
Next up, Canada spanked the Czech Republic 5-0. The Czechs, led by goalie Petr Mrazek - who may have been on Prozac - dumped the Americans 5-2.
By that point, the much-hyped New Year's Eve showdown between Canada and the U.S. meant nothing - which is good, because I was on a plane that night.
(Speaking of which, might be time to get live TV, Air Canada.)
What I don't understand is why U.S. captain and Minnesota Wild prospect Jason Zucker felt the need to guarantee a win over Canada.
There was no good outcome that could result from it. If they had won, what were we supposed to say? Um, congrats, but you're still going to the relegation round?
If they had lost, and they did, 3-2, Zucker would become a target of all kinds of mockery, and he did.
Maybe it's a case of teams being obsessed with Canada at this tournament.
Canada faced Sweden in the gold medal game two years in a row, and who could forget the Swedes bragging about how they were going to dump the tournament favourites?
The 2009 gold medal game saw the brash Swedes get their rear ends handed to them in a 5-0 defeat that saw Jacob Markstrom pretty much lose his mind.
The next year, Sweden didn't even make the final. They were so focused on Canada that they forgot about the rest of the tournament and flamed out.
This year, it seems possible that the Americans put so much of their focus on the New Year's Eve game, which is usually a barnburner, that they got whipped by a pair of lesser teams and rendered the game meaningless before it even happened.
Let's hope the Canadians can show why opponents are so eager to knock them off. Canada faced Russia last night in the semifinal in what I would expect to be their toughest challenge of the tournament.
That said, I doubt Evgeni Kuznetsov can put up another nine points. A win in that game would send them to the final, likely against Sweden.
Josh Lewis can be reached by phone at 634-2654, by e-mail at [email protected], on Twitter at twitter.com/joshlewis306 or on his Bruins blog, newly located at estevanmercury.ca/bruinsbanter. What does it say about Ilya Bryzgalov that he steals the show on 24/7 and then doesn't even get the start for the actual show?
