A great feeling when it all comes together

I got a warm feeling all over when Canada won gold in men's hockey at the World University Games in Turin, Italy.

It felt even better because the team was made up of players from our very own Atlantic Universities Hockey Conference, which managed to improve on the silver medal an AUHC team won in 2001 when the conference last represented our country at the games.

The key to winning in international competition, especially with a team that doesn't normally play together, is preparedness.

That, I feel, is why the NHL players we send to the Olympics (and elsewhere) have tended to have mixed results.

It's also why head coach Trevor Stienburg, assistants Darren Burns and Gardiner MacDougall and everyone else associated with this latest Team Canada success deserve so much credit.

The achievement flies in the face of the usual scenario: a team normally needs more than the three days this team got to gel in Wolfville just before Christmas. It's a wonderful reflection on the calibre of student-athletes AUHC coaches are attracting to play here.

After all, this wasn't chopped liver the Canadians were competing against. Yes, probably Korea was a bit overmatched, but the U.S. is always competitive, as is Slovakia. Add in a 2-1 semifinal win over a strong Finnish team and a 3-1 win over the always tough and competitive Russians in the final (after tying them 2-2 in round robin play); all in all, it adds up to a pretty impressive showing.

I've always said the best university hockey in Canada - maybe some of the best hockey, period - is being played right here in the Maritimes. Yes, the majority of the players have tended to be from the talent-rich Ontario and Western Canada major junior leagues (though the QMJHL has been catching up of late, especially as it has expanded into our region).

We should all be proud four members of Team Canada are Maritimers: Brandon Benedict from Avondale, Hants Co.; Stuart MacRae from Coxheath in Cape Breton; Darryl Boyce of Summerside, PEI; and Brandon Roach from Bay Roberts, NL.

We should be even more proud two of these players - Benedict, a Team Canada co-captain, and Roach - are students at Acadia - along with John Ceci, a backup goalie on the team; and Burns, who served as an assistant coach.

Benedict regrettably missed the final against the Russians due to a knee injury, but he still led Team Canada in goals with six, including a hat trick against Korea.

It's not easy for players who normally oppose each other - even though they may be friends off the ice - to come together successfully as a team. It's even harder to then travel across several time zones and play some of the best players at your level from the rest of the world.

For Team Canada to do so well - not only winning Canada's first gold medal at the World University Games in 15 years, our third overall; and to do it so convincingly, with 34 goals scored and just four allowed in six games - is something we can be very proud of.