Jordan Schroeder, Mike Hoeffel and Cade Fairchild, the three Gophers who played for the U.S. team in the World Junior Championships, got to see how wild Canada is about hockey.

More than 20,000 fans attended the Canada-U.S. game last week in Ottawa.

“It was probably the wildest hockey environment I have ever been in,” said John Schroeder, Jordan’s father who was in the stands. “The crowd, the enthusiasm, the hype, the passionate fans. People in the U.S. do not understand how passionate Canadians are for hockey.

“It was a sellout and people were asking $125 for a ticket to the U.S. versus Canada.”

John Schroeder was not sitting with other parents of U.S. players. Instead he was on the red line at the second level among Canada fans. “I had good seats,” he said. “They were passing a huge Canadian flag around. Everywhere you go, they were so passionate about hockey. It’s hard to describe the pressure on Canada’s kids, they refuse to love. The kids are a failure if they do not win the championship. We had them 3-0 and we had some unfortunate things happen.”

Canada, which beat the U.S. 7-5, eventually won the gold medal for the fifth year in a row. That streak began after the U.S. won its only gold in this event in 2004.

GUENTZEL WISHES LUCIA WELL

Colorado College assistant coach Mike Guentzel was recently in the Twin Cities for 15 days with CC on holiday break.

Like many people, Guentzel, an assistant coach at the U for Don Lucia’s first nine seasons there, read about Lucia’s health problems.

He sent him a card expressing his best wishes for a quick recovery.

Guentzel returned to Colorado Spring this week. He said everything is going fine for him there as a first-year assistant there.

The Tigers, who won the regular-season title in the WCHA last season, are tied for third place with Wisconsin now. Second-place Minnesota is one point ahead.

 “We need to get going in the second half,” Guentzel said.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Gophers men's hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.