Canada coach Dave Cameron shuffles the deck at hyped-up World Juniors

The lineup that faced the Germans was more sensible than the one used in Canada's first games.

Published Dec 29, 2024  •  5 minute read

Cole Beaudoin is seen in a game against Finland on Dec. 26. Beaudoin, who grew up 10 minutes from the Canadian Tire Centre, was bumped up to the first line alongside Calum Ritchie and Easton Cowan for the game against Germany on Sunday. Photo by Minas Panagiotakis /Getty Images

Like Team Canada’s players, Dave Cameron spent Saturday’s break from practices and world junior hockey competition taking a deep, relaxing breath.

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“It was a great recovery day,” Cameron said the next morning. “Contrary to belief, coaches have to recover too.”

Maybe, except that Cameron takes days off like a short-order cook who spends 10 hours preparing a big Christmas dinner for his family and friends.

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But then, what else would you expect from a 66-year-old hockey lifer who does double duty as both the bench boss for the national junior team and the Ottawa 67’s — after playing professionally as long as he could and coaching at numerous stops both in North America and Europe?

“I had the pleasure of addressing some minor league, Tier II coaches, and had some banter with them,” Cameron said in detailing his day. “I love talking hockey, so that was real good for me, from a point of view that in this business, you’re always sharing information, and when you share information you learn. So that was great, and the timing of it was perfect because it was on an off day, so it’s not like you’re rushing to do anything, there’s no real heavy timeline. So I really, really enjoyed that.”

At that point, TSN’s Mark Masters beat yours truly to the punch by asking Cameron which questions are better, those from the coaches or the ones he fields from the media.

“The difference is the coaches ask questions that are really relevant,” he replied. ” I understand the media. The media doesn’t believe half the questions they’re asking. They’re feeding into the hype. There was no hype yesterday. It was just all genuine.

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“We know what this tournament is, it’s all about hype,” continued Cameron. “Sometimes the hype takes precedence over what’s actually going on.”

Not just at the world juniors, Cameron maintained.

“In hockey in general, (with) the hype and that, the actual evaluation of the game is missed a lot of times because of the hype,” he said. “Somebody’s not happy with this or somebody’s not happy with their ice time, and blah, blah, blah, blah. But the reality of it is that it’s a simple game. Keep it simple and let the game speak for itself.

“It’s like losing to Latvia, everybody says, ‘What went wrong? Latvia beat you.’ Hey, give Latvia credit. It was more what Latvia did than what we didn’t do. The goalie had the game of his life. The team bought in like crazy, which is what this tournament does when you play for your country. That’s why there are no easy games. And so full kudos to them. That’s a great thing for us to learn from.

“But the sun did come up after we lost that game.”

And Cameron clearly did more than speak to minor league coaches.

He conversed with his Team Canada assistants and management staff about changes that were implemented for the Germany game on Sunday.

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It’s easy to say in hindsight, after a game they lost their best defenceman and failed to score more than twice on 57 shots (and only three times on 41 attempts at Finland’s Petteri Rimpinen), but the lineup that faced the Germans was more sensible than the one used in Canada’s first games — with the exception of the necessary move that saw Sawyer Mynio replace the outstanding but now injured Mattew Schaefer.

In no particular order …

The new look had one of the best teenage goal scorers in the country, 19-year-old Carson Rehkopf, trading places with rarely used (against Latvia) Porter Martone, a 17-year-old who should be one of the first players picked in next June’s NHL draft but has not distinguished himself thus far in the tournament.

Rehkopf and Martone, who watched Sunday’s game from the press box, are close friends and linemates with the OHL’s Brampton Steelheads.

Why was Rehkopf a healthy scratch against Latvia and Finland?

“Other guys gave us the best combination to win the game,” said Cameron.

The other two moves involved the shuffling of combinations that were already in the lineup.

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Cole Beaudoin, who grew up 10 minutes from the Canadian Tire Centre and is so highly thought of that the Utah Hockey Club traded up to draft him in the first round last summer, was bumped up to the first line alongside Calum Ritchie and Easton Cowan.

There’s nothing subtle about the game played by the bangin’ and crashin’ 6-foot-2, 210-pound Beaudoin.

“He plays in all the hard areas,” said Cameron. “He knows what he is. His biggest strength is he’s a helluva hockey player. He drives to the net, he opens things up, he’s physical.”

Sam Dickinson, the top-scoring defenceman in Canada and the 11th overall pick of the San Jose Sharks six months ago, took Schaefer’s place on the blue line beside Oliver Bonk, his teammate with the London Knights.

Dickinson, who played a little more than 16 minutes against Latvia, was also lined up to quarterback Canada’s relatively ineffective (1-of-7) power play.

But Dickinson, who has identical physical dimensions to Beaudoin, is not a one-trick pony.

“He’s a real helluva hockey player,” said Cameron. “He’s high-end, he’s going to play in the NHL for a long time. He’s got a real good 200-foot game.”

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Dickinson and Bonk have been paired together on the Knights’ blue line for most of the last two-and- a-half seasons, and, along with Easton Cowan, have driven a London power play that has gone back and forth with Cameron’s in Ottawa as the best in the OHL.

“I think it’s huge,” Dickinson said of the chemistry he has with Bonk. “I think you have to be on the same page.

“(As a defenceman), sometimes it seems like you’re on an island out there if your forwards get a little scrambly or something like that. So it’s huge to be able to not only have verbal communication, but you have also got to know where your guy is going to be, even without talking. You’ve got to trust that he’s going to be in the right spots and know that you can just make those easy outlet plays with, with knowing where he is, sometimes without him saying anything as well.”

Sometimes the hype seems genuine, too.

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