With the U-18 World Hockey Championships now over, Oakville's Calum Ritchie and Nick Lardis return home from Switzerland with Bronze Medals after their overtime victory against Team Slovakia.
"It was really fun," said Calum Ritchie reflecting on his time overseas. "It was my first time being in Europe, and it was a different experience for sure."
The obvious goal for Canada in this tournament was to win a gold medal. However, Canada knew they would be in for a challenging task when they dropped their first game of the tournament to Sweden by a score of 8-0.
Canada bounced back in their next three games beating Germany, Slovakia, and Czechia in the preliminary stages and moved on to the knockout rounds.
Canada beat host country Switzerland in the Quarter-Finals by a score of 7-3 but could not win against Sweden in the Semi-Finals as they dropped that game 7-2.
The Swedish team was a powerhouse team from the start, as the players from Team Sweden had played together all season. In contrast, Team Canada only started playing together shortly before the tournament began.
"It was definitely a challenge for our team," Ritchie said about playing against the Swedes. "What made (Team Sweden) really good was that they had good chemistry and moved the puck well."
Ritchie also added that Team Sweden also had a great net-front presence and was able to score by tips and screens, making the goalie's job a lot harder.
Although the Semi-Finals did not go according to plan, Canada hit the reset button, played Slovakia the next day, and won in overtime.
Both Ritchie and Lardis ended the tournament with respectable point production.
Ritchie finished with nine points in seven games which was third on the Canadian team, and Lardis finished with four points in seven games, with all of his points being goals, and he even scored a hat trick in Canada's second game against Germany.
Now Ritchie and Lardis are into their off-season, where they await that all-important June 28th day in Nashville, where they both hope to hear their names called at the NHL draft.
But until then, all they can do is continue to train and heal from the past season and hope they will find themselves in an NHL development camp in July.