Para Worlds Recap – United States 3 Canada 0

Canada came up short in the cross-border battle with its rivals, the United States, falling 3-0 at worlds.

May 31, 2023

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2022-23 National Para Hockey Team

MOOSE JAW, Saskatchewan – Canada’s National Para Hockey Team closed out preliminary-round play falling 3-0 to its American rivals at the 2023 World Para Hockey Championship on Wednesday night.

Dominic Larocque (Quebec City, Que.) turned aside 14 of 16 shots and was named player of the game.
Offensively, Dominic Cozzolino (Mississauga, Ont.) led all forwards with 20:14 of ice time; while defensively Zach Lavin (Essex, Ont.) registered 25:00 minutes.
The U.S. outshot Canada 16-9.

Next Game:

Canada vs. Italy or Czechia – Saturday, June 3 (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT)

All games from the 2023 World Para Hockey Championship are available via livestream at HockeyCanada.ca.

Quotes:

“It was a pretty good game; the Americans know us really well and we know them. It’s always a tight game and we have a new team. It’s a new year for us, new guys on the team, but it’s part of the process to build on that. Win or lose, we’ll build on the game and hopefully we will see them again. Overall, I feel I played well. The Americans had a couple of good chances for sure and I tried to keep the game tight. Unfortunately they beat me twice, but it’s part of the game. I just tried to keep it as tight as possible to give our team a chance to win.”

Larocque on his play

“We’re always just looking for feedback to decide how we can be better tomorrow. Obviously as you go deeper in a tournament, you need to be better the next day. Although we’re a young team, we have enough experience in that room to understand that it will go up another level in semifinals. We’ve never experienced that at home and that will bring a certain level of pressure for sure, but I believe that our investment this year, especially on the mental performance side, will allow us to be able to handle that well and bring out a good performance against whoever we play on Saturday night.”

Head coach Russ Herrington (Unionville, Ont.) on expectations for the playoff round

“We talked [in the dressing room] after the game that when you have the opportunity to put on this jersey, all you ask from yourself and your teammates is that you give everything you have and I think we demonstrated that tonight. Regardless of the outcome, we’re proud of our team and excited about the strides we took as the game went on. I thought our third period was our best period, competed hard and obviously have great goaltending. We started to make simple plays as the game went on and that started to generate more offensive chances. I think we carry that forward into our semifinal game and hopefully put ourselves in a position to compete for a gold.”

McGregor on the team’s effort despite the loss

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