2007 World Junior A Challenge The 2007 World Junior A Challenge was an international Junior " A " ice hockey tournament hosted by Hockey Canada . The 2007 World Junior A Challenge was hosted by the Canadian Cities of Trail , British Columbia and Nelson , British Columbia from November 5 to November 11 , 2007 . The exhibition games played prior to the tournament took place between November 1 and 3 , in Trail , Nelson , and Castlegar , British Columbia , and Okotoks , Alberta . Extra teams taking part in the exhibition series included the Trail Smoke Eaters of the British Columbia Hockey League , Okotoks Oilers of the Alberta Junior Hockey League , and an all - star contingent from the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League . Canada West defeated Canada East in the finals 4 - 1 to claim the gold medal . Team USA beat Russia 9 - 6 in the Bronze Medal Game to claim third place . Belarus defeated Germany 5 - 3 in the 5th Place Game the day before . 2007 Teams . Canada West is fresh off of winning the inaugural WJAC in 2006 . The team will consist of players mostly from the BCHL and AJHL , but will also have representatives from the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League , Manitoba Junior Hockey League , and Superior International Junior Hockey League . Canada East was the 2006 WJAC runners - up . The team is headed by Jerome Dupont , head coach of the Royal Bank Cup 2007 National Champion Aurora Tigers . The team is mostly comprised of players from the 35 - team Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League , which operates more like four separate leagues during the regular season . The team will also have representatives from the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League , Central Junior A Hockey League , Quebec Junior AAA Hockey League , and Maritime Junior A Hockey League . The United States has entered the WJAC for the first time . Featuring a strong roster of undrafted Tier I Junior " A " players from the United States Hockey League , the USA had the potential to be a contender for the tournament ' s top prize . Other teams in the tournament were Russia , Germany , and Belarus . Slovakia has opted out of the tournaments second year despite a fourth place finish in 2006 . Summary . Exhibition . Exhibition play started on November 1 . A newly formed Canada West squad challenged the local Trail Smoke Eaters of the British Columbia Hockey League . Smoke Eaters almost created a massive upset against the defending WJAC champs , but fell short with a 2 - 1 loss to Canada West . The same night , the Canada East squad challenged the Junior " B " all - stars of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League . The East squad came out flying in the first period but ran into the KIJHL ' s Creston Thundercats goaltender Wade Waters who only allowed one goal on sixteen shots in the first period . Despite being badly out - shot , the KIJHL all - stars kept it close , as Canada East only defeated them by a score of 4 - 1 . The next night began with the biggest shocker of the exhibition series . Canada West were embarrassed by Team Russia 6 - 1 in front of their hometown faithful . Going down 6 - 0 in the first forty minutes and allowing five goals in under ten minutes of play , Canada West did not play like the champions of the World Junior A Challenge 2006 . The other game of the night saw the Okotoks Oilers of the Alberta Junior Hockey League host Team Germany . In a thrilling shootout style game , the Oilers came out on top with a 7 - 3 victory . The final night of exhibition play started with Team Germany and Team Belarus squaring off . In a tight game , the Germans came out on top and beat the Belorussians by a score of 3 - 1 . In the second game of the night , Canada East got their chance to gauge the talent level of Team Russia as the two teams squared off . The Canadians left the first period with a 1 - 0 lead , only to lose it early in the second . Facing a 2 - 1 deficit , the Canadians scored three straight goals in the second period and then held of a hungry Russian squad for the 4 - 3 victory . Round robin . On November 5 , Day One of the tournament , Russia was pitted against Germany in Pool A and Canada East squared off against Belarus in Pool B . The Russians defeated the German squad by a score of 6 - 2 . Belarus , much improved from last years WJAC , kept the game close against Canada East . In the end , the East capitalized at the right times and won the game by a score of 4 - 1 . Day two , November 6 , proved to be an exciting game for American hockey fans . Pitted against the Belorussians , the American squad fell quickly behind in their first ever WJAC game . Down 4 - 1 in the second period , the Americans eventually rallied back to take a 6 - 5 lead . Belarus scored with less than three minutes left to force overtime . With five seconds left in overtime , Belorussian goaltender Valeriy Pronin lost a race for a loose puck against American Barry Almeida which resulted in an empty net game winning goal for the USA with seconds left in the frame . The other game of the night saw Canada West open their tournament against the German squad . The Canadians took out their pre - tournament frustration on the Germans and defeated them by a score of 7 - 2 . November 7 , 2007 proved to be a disastrous day for both Canadian squads at the WJAC . Canada East met the American squad for the first time ever . The Americans scored first and the Canadians tied it up shortly after . They left the first period tied 1 - 1 . The opposite occurred in the second period , and the second finished 2 - 2 . The third was scoreless and the game ended up in sudden death overtime . Exactly halfway through the forth frame , Barry Almeida of the American squad scored to win the contest . The goal was Almeida ' s second straight game winning goal and overtime marker . Despite the tight score , the Americans were badly out shot . The final shots were 37 - 23 for Canada . Canada West had their opportunity to make up for their embarrassing exhibition loss to the Russians that night . After two periods , the Russians led the West squad by a score of 2 - 0 with goals from Filitov and Kugryshev . Early in the third , the West popped two quick goals from Lee and Ziegler to tie the game up . With less than two and a half minutes left , Grachev of the Russians scored to give Russia the lead . They scored an empty net goal to end the game 4 - 2 . Canada West dominated the Russians with shots , 37 - 22 . Russia and the United States jump straight to the tournament semi - finals with their wins , while Canada East and Canada West are forced to play qualifier games against Germany and Belarus for the right to move on to the semi - finals . Quarter - finals . On November 8 , the quarter - finals took place at the WJAC . Canada East took on Team Germany . The Germans scored early in the game and held a 1 - 0 lead for most of the game . In the third period , the East scored four unanswered goals to defeat the German squad by a score of 4 - 1 . In the other quarter - final , the Canada West squad played against the Belorussians . The West came up with an early 2 - 0 lead in the game . The Belorussians scored in the second to make it 2 - 1 . Early in the third , Belarus tied the game at 2 . Belarus started taking untimely penalties and Pittsburgh Penguins ' prospect Casey Pierro - Zabotel scored a natural hat trick in only 4 minutes and 2 seconds . Two of Pierro - Zabotel ' s goals were on the power play and the three goals made the score 5 - 2 . The game ended with a final score of 7 - 3 for Canada West and a series of serious penalties ( gross misconducts and match penalties ) for both squads . Canada East and Canada West moved on to the WJAC semi - finals , while Germany and Belarus will play in the 5th Place Match early on November 10 . Semi - finals and 5th Place . The " 5th Place Match " occurred on November 10 between Germany and Belarus . The first period was scoreless . The second period saw the Belorussians score early , but were followed up by two German goals . In the third , the Belorussians came alive and outscored Germany 4 - 1 to win the game 5 - 3 . Both teams are done for the tournament . The first semi - final was between Canada East and Russia . Jordon Watts scored a second period shorthanded marker to put Canada East up 1 - 0 . Early in the third , the Russians answered back . Louke Oakley of Canada East scored on a late game penalty shot to win the game for the East and launch them into their second straight final . The second semi - final was between Canada West and the American squad . The West came out flying and ran away with a 4 - 1 first period lead . The West held off the Americans for the rest of the game and added an additional marker to win the game 5 - 1 . The victory sets up an East - West rematch of last years WJAC and also Russia vying for their second straight bronze medal against the unpredictable Team USA . Gold and Bronze . The Bronze Medal Game began at 2 : 00 PM PST on November 11 . The game was between the Americans and the Russians . The Russians asserted dominance early , leaving the first period with a 2 - 0 lead . In the second , the Americans made it 2 - 1 early and the Russians came back to make it 3 - 1 . After this , the Americans netted two quick ones to tie the game at three , only to have the Russians score more to close the period with a 5 - 3 lead . In the third period , the Americans again tied up the game with two quick goals . The Russians came back with seemingly the " comeback killer " to make it 6 - 5 , but the Americans came alive and scored four unanswered goals to defeat the Russians 9 - 6 . The American victory denies the Russians of their second straight bronze medal at the WJAC , and gives the Americans their first ever medal at their first WJAC . The Gold Medal Game began at 7 : 30 PM PST . The game was a rematch between the two finalists of the 2006 WJAC , Canada East and Canada West . The East came out strong and took an early lead , but two tallies by the West late in the first period closed out the frame with the West leading 2 - 1 . Joe Colborne scored 31 seconds into the second period to give the West a 3 - 1 lead which they held onto throughout the rest of the period . Halfway through the third period , the West put the final nail in the coffin as they scored to make it 4 - 1 . With the win , the West has won the first two ever WJAC championships and the East has to settle for their second straight silver medal . The hero of the final was the West ' s Zac Dalpe who scored the tying goal , the winning goal , and the final goal to get a hat - trick and the game ' s most valuable player . Rosters . Belarus . Players : Vitali Trus , Vitali Belinski , Valeriy Pronin , Oleg Goroshko , Aleksandr Eronov , Dmitry Shumski , Georgi Yaskevich , Sergei Kopylets , Sergei Sheleg , Aleksei Golubev , Nikolai Goncharov , Dmitry Korobov , Aleksandr Syrei , Roman Ladik , Aleksandr Korotkevich , Pavel Razvodovski , Kirill Brikun , Andrei Kolosov , Aleksandr Pavlovich , Artem Demkov , Igor Voroshilov , Nikita Komarov , Mikhail Stsefanovich , Vladimir Mikhailov , Dmitry Gorbunov , Pavel Dashkov , Andrei Stas , Yuri Eliseenko Staff : Andrei Rasolko , Alexandre Andrievski , Dmitry Kravchenko , Sviatoslav Kiselev , Andrei Konstantinovich , Dmitry Konyakhin , Pavel Golovatski Canada East . Players : Bryan Gillis , Kori Coelho , Alexandre Fournier , Justin Troiani , Brendan Bureau , Brandon Burlon , Evan Zych , Chris Haltigin , Daniel Spivak , Corey Tamblyn , Ethan Werek , James McIntosh , Louke Oakley , Corey Trivino , Chris Kangas , Jeremy Franklin , Geoff Hum , Jordan Watts , Michael Budd , Mike McLaughlin , Adam Brace Staff : Jerome Dupont , Mark Grady , Troy Ryan , Marty Abrams , Brent Ladds , Bob Baird , Darren Allan Canada West . Players : Bradley Eidsness , Allen York , Andrew MacWilliams , Scott Enders , Jeff Forsythe , Damon Kipped , Steven Seigo , Tommy Brown , Trevor Nill , Wes Pawluk , Ryan Magill , Andrew Cherniwchan , Joe Colborne , Derek Lee , Derek Robinson , Casey Pierro - Zabotel , Russell Goodman , Taylor Gal , Mike Connolly , Zac Dalpe , Brett Hextall Staff : Boris Rybalka , Al Glendinning , Dwight McMillan , Darcy Rota , Kim Davis , Wayne Hubbard , Carolyn Glover Germany . Players : Etienne Renkewitz , Chistian Wendler , Markus Keller , Andreas Tanzer , Andre Mangold , Sinan Akdag , Sebastian Eickmann , Gregor Stein , Soren Strum , Jens Heyer , Nicolas Ackermann , Robin Thomson , Daniel Mohle , Martin Buchwieser , Michael Christ , Patrick Geiger , Thomas Weiszdorn , Andre Huebscher , Alexander Oblinger , Dimitri Litesov , Daniel Oppolzer , Michael Rimbeck , Steven Ruppich , Robert Schopf , Marc Wittforth , David Wolf , Martin Hinterstocker Staff : Jeffery Tomlinson , Rupert Meister , Michael Pfuhl , Michael Ulmer , Heinz Endres , Wolfgang Fischer Russia . Players : Danila Alistratov , Andrey Petukhov , Alexander Pechurskiy , Igor Golovkov , Andrey Grenkov , Dimitry Kostromitin , Anton Klementiev , Dmitry Kulikov , Pavel Lukin , Dmitri Kozlov , Vyacheslav Voinov , Maxim Chudinov , Eduard Orlov , Pavel Chernov , Anton Lazarev , Vyacheslav Kulemin , Andrey Kuchin , Mikhail Fisenko , Maxim Trunev , Ilya Zagretdinov , Andrei Loktionov , Dmitri Kugryshev , Evgeni Grachev , Kirill Petrov , Sergei Ostapchuk , Igor Biryukov , Magomed Gimbatov , Nikita Filatov Staff : Alexander Biryukov , Valery Davletshin , Vladislav Kokarev , Sergey Gimaev , Maxim Elizarov , Igor Tkachenok United States . Players : Josh Robinson , Brady Hjelle , Maxim Nicastro , Tyler Kieffer , John Lee , John Carlson , Seth Helgeson , Ben Blood , Blake Kessel , Mike Cichy , Nicolas Sacchetti , Jarred Festler , Keegan Flaherty , Craig Smith , Jimmy Hayes , Nick Larson , Barry Almeida , Jack Connolly , Nick Dineen , Tim Hall , Drew LeBlanc Staff : P . K . O ' Handley , Regg Simon , Marc Boxer , Darrin Flinchem , Todd Klein , Leo Chen Awards . Most Valuable Player