WORLD JUNIORS
U. S. takes fifth by beating Czechs
Canada, Sweden to play for gold
OTTAWA — New Hampshire star James van Riemsdyk scored at 2:49 of overtime to give the United States a 3-2 victory over the Czech Republic on Sunday night in the fifth-place game in the world junior hockey championship in Scotiabank Place.
Ondrej Roman gave the Czechs a 2-1 lead with 9:01 left, but University of Minnesota defenseman Cade Fairchild tied it on a power play with 6:58 to go.
Eric Tangradi also scored for the Americans, coming off a 5-3 quarterfinal loss to Slovakia after going 3-1 in the preliminaries.
Kitchener’s Josh Unice made 25 saves for the United States.
Zdenek Okal added a goal for the Czech Republic, and Tomas Vosvrda made 45 saves.
Also Sunday in relegation play, Juha Metsola made 25 saves to help Finland beat Germany, 3-1, and Roberts Jekimovs and Artjoms Ogorodnikovs each scored twice in Latvia’s 7-1 victory over Kazakhstan.
Tonight, four-time defending champion Canada will face Sweden in the championship game at 7:30 p. m. Russia will play Slovakia in the third-place game at 3:30 p. m.
Saturday night, Jordan Eberle and John Tavares scored in a shootout in Canada’s 6-5 win over Russia.
Eberle, a first-round pick of the Edmonton Oilers who plays for the Regina Pats in the Western Hockey League, scored twice in regulation, the second with five seconds left and goalie Dustin Tokarski off for an extra attacker.
“I didn’t ever give up and I think that’s the biggest thing for Team Canada,” Eberle said.
Canada is trying to match its record of five straight titles, set from 1993-97.
“There’s nothing else we want,” said Tavares, the Oshawa star expected to be one of the top picks in the NHL draft.
