Jansen Harkins and his Team Canada teammates are ready to take on the world.
The 17-year-old Prince George Cougars centre is in Zug, Switzerland, for today's opening game at the IIHF World Under-18 hockey championship against Latvia (6:30 a.m., TSN).
Canada went 2-0 in exhibition play, defeating Germany 6-5 in a shootout Tuesday, after posting a 5-0 win over Slovakia on Monday. Harkins scored Canada's fifth goal against Germany in the second period and the Canadians led 5-1 after two periods. But the Germans scored four third-period goals on goalie Stuart Skinner (Lethbridge Hurricanes), who came in to replace Evan Cormier. Skinner was later released from the team.
Anthony Beauvillier (Shawinigan Cataractes) scored the only goal in the shootout.
The Team Canada roster is made up exclusively of players from the Canadian Hockey League and includes two goalies - Cormier (Saginaw Spirit) and Zachary Sawchenko (Moose Jaw Warriors); seven defencemen - Ethan Bear (Seattle Thunderbirds), Guillaume Brisebois (Acadie-Bathurst Titan), Kyle Capobianco (Sudbury Wolves), Thomas Chabot (Saint John Sea Dogs), Jeremy Roy (Sherbrooke Phoenix), Matthew Spencer (Peterborough Petes) and Parker Wotherspoon (Tri-City Americans); and 10 forwards - Harkins, Beauvillier, Mathew Barzal (Seattle Thunderbirds), Tyler Benson (Vancouver Giants), Glenn Gawdin (Swift Current Broncos), Brett Howden (Moose Jaw Warriors), Nathan Noel (Saint John Sea Dogs), Nicolas Roy (Chicoutimi Sagueneens), Deven Sideroff (Kamloops Blazers) and Mitchell Stephens (Saginaw Spirit).
Ten of those players, including Harkins and Barzal, won gold for Canada at the 2014 U-18 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Cup in the Czech Republic and Slovakia last August. Barzal was with the national team last year when they won bronze at the U-18 world championship.
