Yup. All good things must come to an end. In this case, with their 2-3 shootout loss to Latvia, Canada had undefeated in official World Juniors in years ending in 5, until tonight (well, last night, since I'm posting this after midnight). Since this is the 2025 tournament, I'm counting this game as 2025 even though it happened in the calendar year 2024.

• The 1985 team went 5-0 with 2 ties.

• The 1995, 2005 and 2015 teams all went 7-0 (2015 also never trailed at any point in the tournament, nor was ever tied other than 0-0).

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I actually missed this game due to flying home from a vacation (I saw the win over Finland at a sports bar there), and based on the few comments I've seen, it sounds like I didn't miss much.

But honestly, call it coping if you will, and maybe it's easy for me to say this because I missed this game, but I don't think this loss is worth getting upset over.

1. Contrary to what you might see, this isn't Latvia's first win over Canada at an IIHF tournament. The senior men's team beat Canada at the World Championship in 2021 (and if you saw that game, I remember Canada's effort was abysmal). The big difference for me is that at the MWC, these are supposed to be established professionals. And they put out the effort you saw in that game. Meanwhile, at the WJC, Canadian fans routinely forget that these are teenagers who are held to standards that rival our Olympic team (which, to be honest, is not a good thing). Which leads to my next point...

2. Maybe it'll knock some sense back into our fans. The arrogance that some of our fans have towards our team at this tournament has bothered me for a while, to the point where I can see how fans of other countries don't like us at this tournament. And maybe it's media-fed... but come on. We shouldn't come into any WJC expecting to steamroll everyone we play.

3. Team Canada was damned if they did, damned if they didn't. This result yielded a predictable reaction from fans. In fact, even if Canada had won in a 1- or 2-goal game, it'd probably be more of the same. But win in a blowout, and you'll have the a certain segment of the media, who never pay attention to IIHF tournaments except to follow NHL prospects at the WJC, calling for the WJC field to be reduced. The one tradeoff that we get from a loss like this is that those media people shut up (for once).

4. Upsets HAPPEN! It's never fun to be on the wrong side of one, but this is what makes this and the other IIHF events as fun and entertaining as they are (yes, even the Men's World Championship).

Anyhow. One loss. Lots of tournament left. We'll see if this coaching staff, team and fanbase can learn from this.

What a game.

Thoughts? Comments? Unbridled praise of the Latvian goalie?