Krasnaya Armiya wins 1st World Junior Club Championship

04 Sep 2011 | Derek O’Brien

Krasnaya Armiya Moscow, the junior club of CSKA, won the first ever World Junior Club Championship on Saturday in Omsk, Russia. They defeated Czech club Energie Karlovy Vary 7-2 in the final game before a sell-out crowd of 9,500.

In a fairly balanced attack, the Russian club was led by 2 goal and 1 assist from Mikhail Plotnikov, who was the player of the game. "This was the first time in my life I've seen so many people in the stands. It's an incredible feeling. Such adrenaline. I had never experienced such feelings. When you score, it's just an explosion of emotions!" About the game, he said, "We knew nothing about the Czechs. We had never even seen them, at the hotel or on the ice. And we could have scored more than seven goals. It's too bad that I couldn't complete the hat-trick."

The tournament also included Dinamo Shinnik from Belarus, HK Riga from Latvia, Tatranskí Vlci from Slovakia, Malmö Redhawks from Sweden, the Fort McMurray Oil Barons from Canada, and the Eastern Junior Hockey League Selects from the USA.

Defending champions of the MHL, the Red Army team were the favourites to win, but they started slowly. They beat Tatranskí Vlci, the junior club of the KHL's Lev Poprad, 4-3 in their first game and then were shut out 2-0 by HK Riga. In their last game of the group stage, they faced a must-win game against the EJHL Selects and blew them out 9-1.

Karlovy Vary entered the final as the only unbeaten team in the tournament. They were a perfect 3-0 in the group stage, surrendering only 1 goal in the process. Goaltender Vladislav Habal posted a pair of shutouts against Mälmo and Shinnik, 4-0 and 1-0, before Fort McMurray managed a goal against back-up Denis Rauscher in the third game, which finished 4-1.

Two players from Riga finished atop tournament scoring with 8 points in three games. Miks Indrašis recorded 5 goals and 3 assists, while linemate Robert Bukarts scored 4 goals and 4 assists. Also recording 8 points was Also from Riga, Kristers Gudlevskis was named the tournament's top goaltender. The best defenceman and forwards were both from CSKA: Andrei Sergeev and Roman Lyubimov.

The World Junior Club Championship was created as a result of discussions that were held at the World Hockey Summit in 2010. Organisers were disappointed with the calibre of teams sent from North America. The Canadian representative came from the Alberta Junior Hockey League, which is on the second tier of Canadian junior hockey, and the American representative was an all-star team created from the third-tier EJHL.

Omsk Arena will be the primary venue for the 2013 IIHF U20 World Championship.

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