from Bruce Arthur of the National Post,

Canada lost 2-1 to Russia in the bronze-medal match of the world junior hockey championship in Malmo, Sweden, on Sunday, one day after a far more disappointing 5-1 semi-final loss to Finland. The caveats: It’s big ice, five different countries have won in the past six years, it’s a game of teenagers, and therefore a game of mistakes. The hockey world has flattened, but these kids can still stumble off cliffs.

This was the fourth straight year in which Canada has delivered a trapdoor performance in an elimination game — the devastating final in Buffalo in 2011, when Canada blew a three-goal lead in the third period, followed by three straight flops in semi-finals. Canada went seven straight years without a gold medal from 1998 to 2004, but it had not finished out of the medals in consecutive years since it adopted the Program of Excellence in 1982.

So we will ask again what went wrong, and wonder whether this is a series of canaries in Canada’s hockey coal mine. And if it is, what is the root cause?

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