But the P.E.I. resident said winning a bronze medal as part of Team Canada is a memory he will treasure.
“It’s a dream come true. I grew up watching the tournament, so to actually be a part of it was amazing,” said Gormley.
Despite playing in the bronze medal game, spirits remained high in the Canadian locker room, he said.
“Obviously it’s not the game you want to be playing in, but when we look back, we are very proud of what we achieved as a team. A medal’s a medal.”
Shawinigan Cataractes captain Michaël Bournival enjoyed the world juniors too.
“It was a good experience. Just to play for the team I was proud of, but to win a bronze medal made it better. Everyone should be proud of us.”
There was a lot to play for in this year’s world championship.
Canada was looking for redemption after two consecutive silver medal finishes, Sweden was looking to end its 31-year gold medal drought. And Russia was playing for the memory of the players killed in the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv plane crash.
This year Sweden played Russia in the finals.
Despite Sweden’s dominance, the game went to overtime in a scoreless game.
Midway through overtime Swedish forward striped Russia’s Nikita Kucherov of the puck and backhanded the puck past Andrey Makarov immediately emptying the Swedish bench.
The Swedes were ecstatic and more than happy to wait for their gold medals, and much to the delight of the Sweden supporting Canadian fans, the Russians were too angry and bitter to even wear their silver medals. One Russian player didn’t want to take a medal.
For Swedish fans, this was a huge win.
“It’s great. It was like a Stanley Cup victory for us in Stockholm,” said Magnus Olsson, a Swedish fan from Grycksbo, Sweden in an online interview.
Contrary to the popular belief that Sweden and Finland have a rivalry similar to Canada and the United States, Sweden’s biggest rival is Russia.
“We don’t hate Finland. We always want to beat them, but we would rather lose to Finland instead of Russia,” said Olsson.
