2010-11 National Men's Under-18 Team

CANADA DOWNS GERMANY 4-2 IN FINAL UNDER-18 EXHIBITION HOCKEY CONTEST

Dresden, Germany -Charles Simard-Hudon and Eric Locke scored third-period goals to lead Canada's under-18 hockey team to a 4-2 exhibition win over Germany on Tuesday.

The win came a day after Canada dropped a 4-3 shootout exhibition decision to Sweden in preparation for the world under-18 tournament that begins later this week.

Nick Cousins and Alan Quine had the other goals for Canada, which outshot Germany 45-29.

Daniel Fischbuch and Huba Sekeski scored second-period goals for the Germans.

Canada finished the exhibition portion of its preparation with a 2-1 record after downing the United States 2-1 in its first pre-tournament contest. The Canadians will now have a little down time as they open the under-18 event Friday against the Czech Republic.

Canada is in Group B with the Czechs, Sweden, Finland and Norway. Group A consists of the United States, Russia, Switzerland, Slovakia and the Germans.

"The time off will be good mentally and physically,'' said Canadian team coach Mike Williamson. "The guys pushed pretty hard with these two games (against Sweden and Germany) and I think it will be good for us.''

However, Williams said the Canadian team won't be standing pat on having won two of three exhibition games.

"I'm not satisfied, I think there's a lot of room to improve,'' he said. "This is one step and now we're really going to have to elevate our game and continue to get stronger.

"We have to do more to create offence and with our team that will mean keeping things simple but getting hungry in front of the net and bearing down on some chances.''

Especially against the Czech Republic, Williamson noted.

"The Czechs are a very well structured hockey team with good talent that plays very hard,'' he said. "The first 10 minutes of that game they will be hitting everything that moves.

"We definitely want to push forward, we don't want to sit on our heels. We just have to do it in an intelligent way.''

And the Canadians showed Tuesday they can play a hard-nosed game and stay out of the penalty box. Canada had no minor penalties against Germany, which only had three.

"We had definitely been taking too many penalties through the course of the pre-competition games so that was a focus of ours,'' Williams said. "There is a fine line.

"If we play the way we want to play we probably will be in the box a little bit but we wanted to eliminate the reaching, holding and hooking penalties, the ones where we weren't moving our feet. We'll definitely need good specialty teams and we'll have to kill penalties but that area was a good one today.''

Cousins opened the scoring 51 seconds into the first before Fischbuch and Sekeski countered to put Germany ahead 2-1. Quine's goal at 17:07 of the period pulled the Canadians even.

Simard-Hudon put Canada ahead to stay at 1:40 of the third but it wasn't until Locke's goal into the empty net at 18:07 that the Canadians got the insurance marker.

With the games now having plenty of meaning, Williamson said it's time for the Canadian squad meet the challenge before it.

"We need to have some unsung heroes,'' he said. "We have a lot of good hockey players and within the bunch someone is going to have to step up.

"It's a tough situation for some of these guys in that they're used to playing a lot of offensive roles and some of them are being asked to check and kill penalties. I truly believe if all the guys buy in and play for that maple leaf on the front of the jersey we'll be pretty satisfied coming home.''

The Canadian roster features 14 players from the OHL, six from the WHL and two from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Canada is a two-time gold medallist at the world under-18 event, winning in 2003 and 2008.

The Canadians were seventh in last year's tournament.

Goals/Buts : 
none/aucun

Penalties/Pénalités : 
none/aucun

Goals/Buts : 
00:51 CAN 17 Nick Cousins (15 Eric Locke, 24 Mark McNeill)
09:21 GER 15 Daniel Fischbuch (14 Marcel Kurth)
12:12 GER 9 Huba Sekeski (21 Manuel Kindl, 17 Marco Hastenteufel)
17:07 CAN 18 Alan Quine (4 Morgan Rielly, 3 Slater Koekkoek)

Penalties/Pénalités :
12:41 GER 27 Kilian Keller (Hooking/ Accrocher)

Goals/Buts :
1:40 CAN 16 Charles Simard-Hudon (5 Ryan Murray, 8 Cody Ceci)
18:07 CAN 15 Eric Locke (3 Slater Koekkoek) EN

Penalties/Pénalités :
06:44 GER 10 Steven Bar (Interference/ Obstruction)
18:27 GER 15 Daniel Fischbuch (Hooking/ Accrocher)