‘It just didn’t work out:’ Millar reacts to early Canadian exit from world juniors

While it can be tough to live up to the lofty expectations Hockey Canada has at the world junior hockey championship, Regina Pats general manager Alan Millar believes those are welcomed by those who don the maple leaf.

In 2021, Millar was named Hockey Canada’s director of player personnel, a job that involved selecting the players to attend national camps and ultimately make up the world junior team.

Canada won two gold medals (2022 and ‘23) with Millar at the helm before he left to become the general manager of the Pats.

He admits that sometimes there’s an unfair amount of pressure put on the kids who get selected to the world junior squad.

“I think sometimes (there is), but it’s an elite program. We are talking about elite players,” he said Tuesday. “That is our top high-performance (program) at this level in our country.

“I think a lot of the players, the coaches (and) the management that are there, they understand the pressures. That is motivation and exciting. That type of pressure to play at that level and the responsibility that comes with it, the players and the coaches and management that are there, they live for that. We all live for that.

“We want to be in that moment and it just didn’t work out for them.”

This year’s edition of the team came up short of those goals in Gothenburg, Sweden, falling 3-2 to Czechia in a quarterfinal after a puck went past Canadian goaltender Mathis Rousseau following a deflection off a teammate’s stick with just 11 seconds left in regulation time.

“At the end of the day watching the game, (the Canadians) were the much better team (over) the last 40 minutes. They could have ran away with the game in the third period. (They) probably could have won it 5-2 or 6-2 but they just didn’t find a way to score,” Millar said.

“It’s a tough tournament and the Czechs hang around and hang around and hang around and they get a fluky goal and you are out of the tournament.”

Millar said the Canadian team dealt with a lot of adversity from what he saw, including early injuries to defencemen Tanner Molendyk and Tristan Luneau as well as an injury to forward Matthew Savoie, who was able to play in the team’s final game.

“It’s disappointing for a lot of very good people who are in Sweden right now and disappointing for a lot of great young men that were on that team. They got a bad break and it’s tough they are out,” Millar said.