World Juniors Disaster: Canada’s Systematic Failure Go Far Beyond Easton Cowan

For the second year in a row, Team Canada suffered an early exit at the World Juniors. And they only have themselves to blame.

 

Typically, they’re one of if not the best competing countries at the annual World Junior Championships, but they had extra expectations on them heading into the 2025 tournament after a rare early exit to Czechia in the quarter-final last year. Not only did Canada suffer the same fate in 2025 to a tee, bowing out to Czechia in the quarter-final on Thursday night, but their entire tournament was full of controversy and negative press over a number of factors, whether you want to focus on poor roster construction, coaching, or discipline issues.

Maple Leafs prospect Easton Cowan has taken a lot of the heat from fans, between some bad penalties, bad giveaways, and an overall disappointing performance offensively with only one goal and three points in five games. It’s hard to argue against Cowan taking said heat because it’s true, he wasn’t good enough at the tournament, and he was supposed to be one of their top players from a production standpoint. What’s not hard to argue against is the fact that he’s been made into a scapegoat for a team that saw underperformance from essentially anybody not named Carter George or Jack Ivankovic (the two goaltenders).

From the moment Team Canada’s final roster was announced, there was something off about the team. They voluntarily left a number of players at home who easily would have helped their scoring issue. Michael Misa, a potential first-overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft, has 30 goals and 64 points in 33 OHL games and was left at home. He’s second in OHL scoring only behind Liam Greentree, a first-round pick of the Los Angeles Kings, who, surprise! Also wasn’t invited to the tournament. They left Zayne Parekh off of the roster, a defenceman who had a whopping 33(!) goals and 96 points in 66 games and has 12 goals and 41 points in 31 games so far this season. Instead, Canada had defenceman Oliver Bonk quarterbacking the power play, a role that he didn’t even play in Junior.

Beckett Sennecke, 2024 third-overall pick and a linemate of Team Canada forward Calum Ritchie with the Oshawa Generals, was left at home too. There’s also defenceman Carter Yakemchuk, another top-10 pick from last season who is over a point-per-game in the OHL, and let’s not forget about forward Andrew Cristall, who’s putting up video game numbers in the WHL, carrying the highest point-per-game average in the league with 24 goals and 57 points in 26 games.

This entire piece could have been written about the roster omissions alone, but it doesn’t stop there. Head coach Dave Cameron showed time after time that he was not cut out for the job, routinely cancelling practices and deflecting all of the blame to his players instead of taking any sort of accountability. He simply shrugged his shoulders when asked what he needed to do about his team’s discipline issue after they took 11 penalties against the United States in their 4-1 loss on New Year’s Eve. Canada then went on to take five more penalties against Czechia in the quarter-final and fittingly surrendered the game-winning goal on the penalty kill.

Let’s return to the ‘cancelling practices’ point in the last paragraph. This refers to multiple cancelled morning skates between games. When pressed about why he did that, Cameron said it was because of team fatigue.

Have you ever heard of cancelled practices for teams competing in a seven-game maximum tournament where your roster is full of players who are chomping at the bit to bring their home country pride and play on the biggest stage of their lives? Well, how you have. And it’s coming from the coach of a team who bowed out in the quarter-final and didn’t put up much of a fight.

Cowan knows he didn’t play his best at the tournament. When asked about the team’s discipline issues against the States, he pointed the finger at himself and acknowledged that he needed to be better. And he did have some plays that were probably worth some extra time on the bench. But here’s an idea – maybe don’t leave some of your top offensive weapons at home and shoehorn a player who projects as a middle-six energy scoring forward into a top-line scoring role and then act surprised when he’s not lighting the world on fire. Maybe don’t take days off of practice because you’re tired when your entire tournament revolves around that stretch between Christmas and New Year’s. And maybe, just maybe, show some accountability behind the bench and be the leader that a head coach is supposed to be.

Team Canada needs a complete top-to-bottom overhaul in time for next year’s tournament, and their issues at the 2025 tournament weren’t an Easton Cowan goal away from being solved.