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Saskatoon Blades head coach Mitch Love rejoined his team on Tuesday after returning from the world junior hockey championship in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
Love helped coach Team Canada to its 18th world junior gold medal and Canada’s first gold medal in Europe since 2008.
“It’s something you dream about as a young boy playing on the outdoor rinks back in B.C. with your siblings. I wasn’t there as a player but it was just as special being a coach and being a part of that and watching them go through that process,” said Love.
“It hasn’t really officially set in quite yet. It was an unbelievable experience for sure. That third period in the gold-medal game was something that probably a lot of people will remember for a long time.”
But it wasn’t just watching the flag raised after the game or receiving the gold medal that stood out to Love, it was the entire process from start to finish.
“One of the greatest things about it was not just the gold medal and the flag going up and all the fans that were there, it was being able to go room to room and tell those kids in Oakville that they made the world junior team,” he said.
Canada beat Russia 4-3 to win gold in a wild game that saw the Canadians come back from a two-goal deficit and cap off the comeback with Akil Thomas scoring the golden goal late in the third period.
“Even though we were down 3-1 we didn’t really feel like we were out of it. We got the fortunate bounce off (Connor) McMichael’s leg to make it 3-2 and I think it just gave our group enough life that we kept going and we earned that power-play and (Barrett) Hayton scores and then Akil Thomas steps off the bench. It was a tense last four minutes,” said Love.
“We preached to our guys that everybody on that bench has got to stay ready because you never know and now you look at Akil Thomas and he’s a folk hero in Canada so what a story that is.”
Love is looking forward to hopefully representing Canada again next year when the tournament is hosted on home soil in Edmonton and Red Deer.
“I’ve been fortunate to have won a gold medal at each level of Hockey Canada and it’s going to be hard for me to not want to be involved in that again, especially on home soil. So I’ll throw my name in the hat again and we’ll see where the cards lie,” he said.
“Hockey is the ultimate team game and to experience this game at the highest level of junior hockey, yeah, it’s the greatest hockey moment of my life for sure.”
But despite all the excitement of the tournament — and despite not getting home until 11 p.m. Monday after hours on buses, on planes, and in airports — Love was still eager to get to the rink for practice with his WHL team Tuesday morning.
“I was excited to come back to the rink today. As much as winning a gold medal is a great experience and a lifetime experience, getting back and going through the grind of the next 31 games with these guys leading into hopefully a playoff run, I was excited this morning to get up,” he said.
“We’ve got three important games this week, and we are in a dogfight here. Brandon is playing some good hockey, they are right ahead of us here in the standings, so we’ve got a lot of work to do to try to solidify ourselves in a playoff position.”
Love said he used the world junior tournament as a learning experience and is coming back with little changes he hopes to implement in the Blades’ remaining games.
“I learned the little things within the structure of the game from other coaches and I think that has been the most interesting part of working with Hockey Canada is you get to work with excellent people, very experienced people, and winners especially like the Hunters and so you know there will be little tidbits that we’ll maybe adjust in our game,” he said, looking forward to this week’s games.
“Edmonton is a very good team, Red Deer we always know are going to compete, but we also know that they are nine points behind us in the standings. We are two points behind Brandon so we are at the fun time of year where there is playoff positioning at stake. So we’ll make sure our guys are ready.”
The Blades hit the ice Wednesday at 7 p.m., at SaskTel Centre to take on the Red Deer Rebels. On Friday, the Edmonton Oil Kings are in town to face the Blades.