TORONTO — Call it pressure if you must, but the 22 Canadians who will wear the nation’s colours at the 2017 world junior hockey championship have something else in mind regarding expectations.
Fun.
“It’s exciting times,” captain Dylan Strome said on Thursday. “It’s good to play the game you love in front of people who are so passionate about it and are really cheering for you. It’s something a lot of guys have never got to experience and I think everyone is taking the opportunity and running with it.”
Team Canada has arrived in Toronto for the preliminary round of the tournament after making a mockery of Finland and the Czech Republic in exhibition games this week in Montreal and Ottawa, respectively.