Game's 4 & 5

It can be pretty hard going from one end of the spectrum after a such a gratifying win only to have the rug pulled out from under you so quickly.  We knew we were in for a fight when we were matched up against the second seeded Belarus.  It was really a david vs. Goliath kind of game in that we were the underdog American squad playing against 3/4 of Belarus' national team of which the majority play in the KHL which is the top pro league in Russia.  From the drop of the puck we had them on their heels.  They went up 1-0 early but we quickly responded and it was tied 1-1 going into the first intermission.  The second period is where all the action happened and we went behind 3-1 by the ten minute mark which only fueled our bench to get going and before they knew it we had tied it up and they were awestruck.  This arrogant European team who was expecting to blow us out quickly realized that they were in a dogfight with us. The more we hit them the more they would shy away from us and give up the puck.  Unfortunately they picked up on this and quickly turned into the Belorussian diving team which, of course, the European referees took as us playing dirty and started calling ridiculous penalties against us.  We ended the period tied at 3's apiece but we would be starting the 3rd period 2 men down which a good team like Belarus would certainly capitalize on.  And sure enough one minute in, they buried a backdoor pass to make it 4-3 and we tried playing catch up the rest of the game.  We continued to get penalties which put our goal further away and they capitalized again when we pulled our goalie and then again with a few seconds left.  

Although we lost 6-3, the score didn't tell the real story.  We played our best game of the tournament and there was really nothing about our game we would have changed.  As our coaches told us, "We win with class and we lose with class", but this wasn't the case for Belarus who tried picking fights with us and tried running our players at the end of the game.  We received numerous hand gestures from their bench as the game ended.  It really stung but we lost with class and held our heads high with the knowledge that we would no longer be competing for a medal.  The locker room was silent but we knew that we had given our last ounces of energy trying to win and advance.  Losing never feels good and everyone knows it. 

Since we had lost we decided that we would do what no American team had done before us in these games and try and finish in 5th place.  Our next game would be the following day against Japan who was one of the fastest teams in the tournament.  We had our team meeting today and everyone agreed that this would be our last chance at finishing better than any team had before us and with that in our minds we went out and took our anger out on Japan.  We took their speed away from them by hitting every guy with the puck as quickly as possible.  It helped that their biggest guy was 6' tall and we were up 1-0 by the end of the first period.

Our coaches came into the locker room and told us that they thought it was the worst period we had played so far and that we had better pick it up if we wanted to win.  We took his words to heart and dominated them the rest of the game.  We went up 4-1 which included a short handed goal that I assisted which felt good as I'm not much of an offensive player and pride myself on protecting my own end.  They did come back in the 3rd period and scored 2 more goals but with a beautiful snipe by one of our forwards late in the game we sealed the victory and solidified the furthest American finish in the World University Games history.  Now this doesn't say much for the American teams in the past but it feels good to go further than any team has before us.  With that said we are shooting for 5th place tomorrow against Slovakia who we already beat but will by no means take lightly come game time.  Either way these games have been an incredible experience and I would certainly love to be selected to play for team USA again in 2 years in Slovenia.