One in 2330 ~ Connor Bedard Love Story

8. Bronze Medal Game

~Champion, Champion~

~*~*~

January 5, 2023, 2:30 PM. 

It was time to play Sweden in the Bronze Medal Game for the World Juniors. The entire team and I had nerves running through our body, knowing that we would have to prove ourselves if we were going to stand any chance at winning this game. Especially since our head coach had told us that there was going to be a scout from the NHL watching the game, and everyone on the team that would be turning 18 next year would be evaluated. Even me!

We were all lined up in the tunnel leading from our dressing room, Luke at the front with me just behind him. As the announcer called us to the ice, we slowly made our way onto the ice, doing a few laps before we all took our spots on the ice and on the bench. 

We had the same starting line up as yesterday's game, Luke, Sean, Logan, Jimmy and I all lined up on our blue line for the national anthems. 

"We've got this," Luke said to the four of us as the announcer was introducing both teams' starting lineups. 

"I hope so," I replied, taking off my helmet, dangling it by my side.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Please stand if you are able for the Star Spangled Banner and O' Canada,"

Once both anthems were sung, I lined up across from Victor Stjernborg, Sweden's top line centre. Thankfully, our coach, Rand Pecknold, had got me practicing face offs a lot recently so the second the puck hit the ice, I was easily able to swipe the puck back towards Luke. 

The puck had gone back and forth between both of our ends before Jimmy ended up shoving Victor Sjöholm to the ice. Jimmy had passed the puck to an open Logan in front of the net and Logan shot the puck into the top right corner of the net.

The light behind the net lit up and the buzzer went off and Luke, Sean, Jimmy and I all tackled Logan into a giant hug.

"Let's fricking go, man!" I shouted, playfully punching Logan in the arm. 

We all passed by the bench, giving our teammates a fist bump before lining up for another face-off. 

*  *  *

Around four minutes into the game, Dylan had tried to jam the puck into the back of the net, but the ref had whistled it dead. Dylan had kept trying for maybe a second later, just in case the puck was actually loose, but two Swedish players were right next to them, and started pushing him away, which lead to a scrum behind the net between Dylan, Rutger, and Oskar Pettersson, Milton Oscarson and Elias Pettersson of Sweden. 

A few minutes later, we had turned over the puck in Sweden's zone and they quickly made their way down the ice. Thankfully we were able to recover the puck and headed the other way, Red quickly breaking back into Sweden's zone. 

Red lost the puck due to the lack of support and he had to hustle back down to our end to try to stop Sweden's William Strömgren from doing anything, unfortunately he ended up getting shouldered in the chin. Axel Sandin-Pellikka sent the puck onto Trey, but it was blocked and Oscarson shot the rebound at the net as well. The puck didn't make it into the net and bounced to the right of the net, Trey jumping on top of the puck to stop the play, everyone on the bench, including me, banged their sticks on the outside wall of the bench in applause.

I had subbed onto the ice for Dylan as Charlie was set to take the face-off against Stjernborg. As soon as the puck had dropped, Stjernborg had managed to push Charlie away and swipe the puck back towards his teammate, Jakob Norén.