By Kamloops This Week
Kamloops Blazers’ Logan Stankoven and Caedan Bankier brought gold back to the tournament capital.
Dylan Guenther scored the golden goal in overtime in Halifax on Thursday (Jan. 5) to lead Canada to first place at the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships with a 3-2 win over the Czech Republic.
Guenther opened the scoring at 12:41 of the first period and Shane Wright’s outstanding individual performance gave Canada a 2-0 lead early in the second frame.
Canada seemed comfortable and looking set for victory midway through the third period, but Jiri Kulich scored for underdogs Czech Republic at 12:30 and Jakub Kos scored 54 seconds later to level the game 2-2.
The 3-on-3 extra session was tense and ended with Guenther on a 2-on-1 at the 6:22 mark, clipping a pass from Joshua Roy past Czech goalkeeper Thomas Suchanek.
Thomas Milic stopped the Canadians and made 24 saves to take the win between the whistles.
Stankoven, who was born and raised in Kamloops, recorded 17 minutes and 29 seconds of ice time, registered four shots and finished with an even plus-minus score.
Banker, originally from Surrey, was 7:51 on the ice, had one shot and was minus-1.
Stankoven already had a Kamloops Sports Hall of Fame-worthy résumé before the tournament.
He had the game-winning goal at the 2021 World U18 Hockey Championships in Texas, an assist for the golden goal at the 2022 World Juniors in Edmonton and Canada Hockey League Player of the Year awards for the 2021-2022 season.
On Thursday, Stankoven built on his legend by becoming the first Kamloopsian to win two gold medals at the World Junior Hockey Championship.
Mark Recchi was the first from Kamloops to win gold at the World Juniors, accomplishing the feat in 1988.
Joe Hicketts was the second Tournament Capital product to win gold at the U20 World Cup, making it in 2015.
Stankoven became the third player from Kamloops to stand on the podium as Canada beat the Finns 3-2 in OT at the postponed 2022 World Junior Championships last summer.
The Blazers organization can claim six medals in the last three World Juniors.
Dylan Garand and Connor Zary won silver in 2021, Garand and Stankoven won gold in 2022 and Stankoven and Banker are the latest to bring shiny hardware back to Mark Recchi Way.
Banker and Stankoven returned to Kamloops with a warm welcome at the airport and played the Rockets in Kelowna.
- Kamloops This Week