By Adam Dunfee /

With a hometown crowd and history on their side, Canada West was all set to make it a three-peat at the World Junior A Challenge, but the Americans had other ideas.

The Americans scored early and often on their way to a 7-1 rout of Canada West in the gold medal game.

The high-powered American offense had already made it 2-0 before Canada West got its first shot on goal.

“Unfortunately for us we had a few bad bounces and we didn’t have some of our big gunners going and in a gold medal game you need everybody going,” coach Boris Rybalka told hockeycanada.ca. “[The Americans’] big players played well and they deserved that gold 
medal victory.”

The Americans chased starting goaltender Kevin Genoe from the net at 16:38 of the first when Mike Cichy scored to give the Americans a 3-1 lead. Genoe however returned to the game at the start of the third after his replacement Andrew Bodnarchuk allowed four goals on 20 shots in his period and a quarter of work.

“At 3-1 going into the second period I still thought we had an opportunity if we had stayed on course but [the U.S.] stuck with their game plan and they were very good with their game plan,” Rybalka told Hockey Canada. “Their powerplay was clicking and we took a few to many penalties which allowed them to capitalize on their powerplay.

The most impressive stat to show the Americans offensive power was that the seven goals they scored were with seven different players.

Canada faired better in the bronze medal game however as Canada East routed a surprising Belarus team 9-1. Reilly Smith scored three goals and added an assist while Pierre-Luc Lacombe collected two goals and two assists for the East squad.

“This was their gold medal game and they came out and they played like a gold medal game. I was very happy with the character they showed and the way they executed here,” coach Mark Grady told hockeycanada.ca

The surprising Belarusian’s went 2-1 in the preliminary round, including an upset 4-3 victory over Canada West in the first game of the tournament, before losing to Canada West in the semi-final to put them in the bronze medal game.

Russia claimed fifth place with an 8-2 win over Germany.