1991
A NEW RIVALRY BEGINS
defeats
After such an exciting Cup final in '87 the '91 version was some what of a let down. But two important things were to come out of this, the final Canada Cup tournament: First, Canada had proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were indeed the deepest hockey nation on earth, reaching finals of the the world's top hockey tournament in each of it's five occurences. Second, a new hockey power was to finally emerge. One that you would have thought would have been able to challenge it's northern neighbour Canada all along.
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GAME ONE
MONTREAL FORUM
MONTREAL, CANADA
USA 1 - CANADA 4
The fall of Communism in 1991 appeared to have also caused the fall of hockey in eastern Europe as both the Czechs and the Russians failed to reach the play-offs for the first time. The Capitalist countries of Canada and the USA had no such difficulties as they finished first and second respectively. Canada had even less difficulty in game one as Montreal witnessed an easy Canada win for the first time in a long while.
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GAME TWO
COPPS COLISEUM
HAMILTON, CANADA
USA 2 - CANADA 4
Despite the USA's Gary Suter attempting to cripple The Great One by checking him from behind in an earlier match, Wayne Gretzky still finished on top of the scoring charts with 4 goals and 8 assists, and Canada still cruised to an easy 2 game sweep of the Americans.
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Final Standings
1: Canada
2: USA
3: Sweden
4: Finland
5: USSR
6: Czechoslovakia
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Canada Roster
HEAD COACH
Mike Keenan
FORWARDS
Shayne Corson / Russ Courtnall / Theoren Fleury / Dirk Graham / Wayne Gretzky / Dale Hawerchuk / Steve Larmer / Eric Lindros / Mark Messier / Luc Robitaille / Brendan Shanahan / Brent Sutter / Rick Tocchet
DEFENSEMEN
Paul Coffey / Eric Desjardins / Al MacInnis / Larry Murphy / Steve Smith / Scott Stevens / Mark Tinordi
GOALTENDERS
Ed Belfour / Sean Burke / Bill Ranford
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