Potential 2026 No. 1 Overall Pick Gavin McKenna Calls Out The Officials After Loss To Czechia
While Team Canada lost their game against Czechia through ill discipline, future top pick Gavin McKenna has called out the officiating for a brutal game.
Thursday night was one of the biggest losses in the history of Team Canada at the World Juniors, with some decisions leading into the game coming back to haunt them, even with Head Coach Dave Cameron defending his decisions.
The loss to Czechia means Canada will miss out on playing for a medal in two straight tournaments, the first time in the countries history that this has happened, but was the loss to Czechia completely on them?
According to potential 2026 first overall pick Gavin McKenna, it may not have been, as he called out the officials for being terrible after the dramatic 4-3 defeat.
While the officiating certainly wasn't great, with Cole Beaudoin given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for what was a two-minute minor at most, there were plenty of other factors that played into it.
Firstly, the selfish, undisciplined play was a staple of Team Canada at this tournament, with the team putting themselves in too many bad positions to get penalized throughout the game.
Secondly, they were still in with a chance late in the game when another poor (and questionable) penalty was taken, with the team needing to kill another penalty with under a minute to go, but ultimately, they couldn't keep the puck out of the net.
That was the story of Canada the whole tournament, so while the penalty to Beaudoin was certainly an idiotic call from the officials, Team Canada still had a chance to win, but with a lack of talent and selfish play all tournament long, they cost themselves the game.
