After a sluggish performance against the Swiss on Tuesday, Canada’s Under-18 team battled back with an 11-3 win over Belarus Thursday.
John McFarland lead the way with a hat trick, while Ryan O’Connor had two goals to lead team Canada.
They got off to a very fast start compared to Tuesday night’s game against Switzerland, scoring three goals in the first five minutes.
It was important to have a solid game, as they have a date with the defending champion Americans Friday.
With the win, Canada improved to 1-1-0-0 in Pool A while Belarus dropped to 0-2-0-0.
Calvin Pickard and Kent Simpson split time in the Canadian goal, and combined to make 23 saves.
Quinton Howden, Brett Connolly, Michael Bournival, Greg McKegg, Ryan Spooner and Jordan Weal rounded out the scoring for Canada.
Artem Levsha, Nikita Kardashev and Dmitri Zhevlochenko scored for Belarus.
Elsewhere, in Pool B play in Minsk, Finland beat Slovakia 5-2 to move into a first-place tie with Russia at 2-0-0-0.
Sweden tops Pool A at 2-0-0-0 while Canada, the U.S. and Switzerland are all tied.
Written with files from the Canadian Press
Topics: John McFarland, Ryan O'Connor, Team Belarus, Team Canada, Team Finland, Team Russia, Team Slovakia, Team Sweden, Team Switzerland, Team USA, Under-18 tournament