Team Canada wins gold in Trentino

Acadia’s Cazzola scores Canada’s first goal in 6-2 win

courtesy of John Decoste http://www.kingscountynews.ca

The Canadian men’s hockey team is bringing home gold from the Winter Universiade in Trentino, Italy.

Team Canada, made up of AUHC players and including Acadia’s Chris Owens, Liam Heelis and Mike Cazzola, captured gold with a 6-2 win over Kazakhstan in the gold medal game Saturday morning, Dec. 21.

The victory avenged a 4-2 defeat at the hands of Kazakhstan in the round robin – which, as it turned out, was Canada’s only loss of the tournament.

Cazzola opened the scoring for Canada, which led 3-1 after one period and 5-1 after 40 minutes.

Kazakhstan scored the game’s first goal 14 seconds in, but after Cazzola tied the score with his third goal of the tournament (to go along with six assists), it was all Canada the rest of the way.

UNB’s Chris Culligan scored twice for Canada, with Cazzola, Josh Day (UPEI), Matthew Maione (UPEI) and Nick MacNeil (UNB) adding single goals. Owens had an assist.

Things got chippy and more than a bit unsportsmanlike in the third period as at least two fights broke out. The Kazakhs ended up with four players and both coaches ejected. Canada had two players ejected for fighting.

The gold medal is Canada’s fourth in men’s ice hockey at the Winter Universiade. Earlier versions of Team Canada won gold in 1981, 1991 and 2007.