NEW YEAR'S EVE PLANS AND MY FAVOURITE HOLIDAY EVENT

I love the World Junior Hockey Championship. I think many Canadians do. It's my favourite event of the holiday season; I look forward to the first game of the tournament on Boxing Day more than Christmas Day, and have done so for years. A few years ago, Canada and the US played on New Year's Eve in an instant classic. Almost all New Year's Eve games at the World Juniors are required viewing. So what am I planning on doing tonight? Oh, you'd better believe it:

If this game lives up to the last few times Canada and the US have met, it will be phenomenal (although, it might be topped by Russia vs. Sweden afterwards, which should be a doozy of a game). The tournament is even more pleasurable to watch this year because TSN has ditched Pierre McGuire (who might be the most annoying man in hockey) for Ray Ferraro--you can hear how much Gord Miller is enjoying working with Ferraro, which makes the commentary much better.

A few reasons why I love this tournament (read: some overt displays of bias and partisanship):

I was in Corvallis when this game happened and had to listen to it as I couldn't get TSN's video stream. I remember telling my girlfriend at the time that if Canada lost the game, then I was going to be in a very bad mood. Heart-stopping brilliance right here (Ryan Ellis deserves as much credit as Jordan Eberle for keeping the puck in the zone on Russia's clearing attempt).

Eberle's game-tying goal is even better, but I can't embed it for some reason (Eberle very much earned his "Mr. Clutch" nickname--doing this in multiple games two years in a row? Unbelievable).

Next to this (which also has one of my favourite calls), this shootout is probably my favourite sports moment. I still get chills watching every second of it.