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World Junior Championship prequels


Jkline3

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Prior to the officially sanctioned IIHF event, the "World Juniors" existed as invitational events for 3 years.  I've taken Slapshot's excellent rom and used it as a base for the 1974-76 tournaments.  I've been bloodying my nose with Tile Molester for a couple months now and have officially calculated that it takes 147.38 hours and a 3-time read through of the entire forum to feel like you sorta know what you're doing!  Center ice still eludes me...  I'm guessing that the logos weren't too elaborate for a low-profile tournament that started in 1970s Russia so am sticking with the plain ol' faceoff dot for now.  Sorry if these are not the most glamorous years but I figured I might as well start at the beginning.

Thanks again to everyone who has helped get me through some of the tricky parts and offered advice and feedback.  

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1974 - Leningrad

The first U20 championship was hosted in Leningrad, USSR and was simply known as "International Youth Hockey Tournament".  The Soviets cruised through the field en route to the gold medal including a 9-0 drubbing of the Canadian bronze medalists while Finland took home the silver.  To be fair, the Russian Machine was not facing the cream of the Canadian crop but the Peterborough Petes - led by Hall of Fame coach Roger Neilson.  Not a whole lot of household names participated - most notably Doug Jarvis and Doug Halward for the Petes (ahem Canadians), Paul Holmgren for the US and Thomas Gradin for the Swedes.

1974 WJC - Leningrad.bin

Edited by Jkline3
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1975 - Winnipeg (and Minneapolis, Brandon and Fargo)

The 1975 edition moved to North American soil for the first time.  Sponsored by CCM, the World Junior Hockey Tournament was again won by the Soviets.  The Canadian side narrowed the gap, falling in what was the de facto Gold Medal game by a score of 4-3 in spite of a furious 3rd period rally in front of over 10,000 spectators.  Canada invited a little more firepower to this year's squad, being represented by 24 WCHL All-Stars including Bryan Trottier, Mel Bridgman,  Brian Sutter and Rick Lapointe.  Sweden earned the bronze, and apparently the attention of the locals as 8 players from the team were either drafted by or suited up for the hometown Jets.  Other notable participants were Czechoslovakia's Peter Stastny and Finns Matti Hagman and Kari Eloranta.  The American representatives finished a dismal 0-5, reflected in the fact that only one member of the team went on to play professionally - a meager 6 game stint by Dan Justin with the Cincinnati Stingers of the WHA.

90_db974cc8397c25ccfa72c5fd008bbfbc.jpg

1975 WJC - Winnipeg.bin

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Thanks Coach, I have been spending the majority of my time working on the graphics side of things but have been meaning to spend some more time with the playoff tree.  I'm guessing that I'll continue to tweak things as I get more experience...  Kind of late to the game here and playing catch up!

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  • 2 months later...

1976 saw the concept of the WJC at a crossroads - lacking sponsorship and official IIHF recognition the tournament appeared to be nearing its end.  In fact, the United States did not send a team to Finland and Canada sent the Sherbrooke Castors, runners up in the QMJHL in 1976, rather than a true national squad.

The Soviet Union again took the gold, running their overall WJC record to 14-0 in the process.  Canada, in spite of a 17-1 loss to Sweden (!!!) won silver while Czechoslovakia placed third.

Future NHLers were few and far between, highlighted by Peter Stastny and Viacheslav Fetisov, a trio of Swedes in Kent Nilsson, Bengt-Ake Gustafsson and Thomas Gradin and an underwhelming pair of Canadians, Jere Gillis and Peter Marsh.

1976 WJC - Finland.bin

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