Top Prospects go head to head in gold medal game

For the second straight year, the gold medal game at the World Junior Championships provided fans and scouts with a head-to-head matchup between potentially the best forward and the best defenceman for the upcoming NHL Entry Draft.

Last year in Ottawa, it was London Knights' forward John Tavares of Team Canada against Swedish defenceman Victor Hedman. This year in Saskatoon, it was Windsor Spitfires teammates Taylor Hall of Canada and Cam Fowler of the U.S.A.

Both players were excited to get the chance to represent their countries in the World Junior Championships.

"This is a tournament that I've watched since I was four years old," Hall said. "I've represented my country a few times (at Under-17 and Under-18 events) and there's not a feeling like that when you're standing on that blueline winning the gold medal."

Hall and Fowler were among the top rated North American prospects when the NHL Central Scouting preliminary ranking list came out in November. They were both named to the roster for the Home Hardware CHL-NHL Top Prospects Game on January 19-20 at the WFCU Centre in Windsor.

Canada also had Spitfires Ryan Ellis, Adam Henrique and Greg Nemisz in their lineup while U.S.A. goaltender Jack Campbell is a Spitfires' prospect and is expected to join the team next season.

"As much as most of us are Canadian, we still have some American kids to cheer for," Spitfires' coach Bob Boughner told the Windsor Star before the gold medal game. "It's a little bit of a divided room with who going for who, but we want to see Cam Fowler and Jack Campbell do well, too."

Fowler will have the bragging rights when they get back to Ontario after the U.S. edged Canada 6-5 in overtime in the gold medal game on Tuesday.

"We gave it our all and they beat us," Hall said. "So congratulations to them."

Regardless of who won on Tuesday, Boughner was looking forward to getting his entire team back this weekend together to defend their MasterCard Memorial Cup title.

"The guys you see up there are the foundation of what we have here," Boughner said. "It's been tough without them but we've gone 4-2 without them, which is a nice surprise. We're definitely looking forward to having them back and then they have one more job to do (win a MasterCard Memorial Cup)."

Photo of Taylor Hall: HHOF-IIHF