NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. — Team Canada had a long practice the day before its first 2026 world junior championship pre-tournament game in mid-December. As preparations for the coming WJC ramped up, the club worked on every facet of the game, including shootouts.
No roster cuts had been made at this point and every player got a chance to shoot on goalies Carter George, Jack Ivankovic and Joshua Ravensbergen. The rules were simple: if a shooter misses, he’s done. If he scores, he shuffles over to the boards and waits to shoot again in Round 2. For goalies, you stay in the crease if you make the save. If not, you swap out for one of the other guys until they get beat.
All three goalies had been duped once when George glided in for his second twirl in the crease. Roughly a third of the skaters had not made their first attempt yet and one-by-one — some slow, some fast — they came down on George and failed to find a way past the goalie. Finally, the only skaters remaining were the three guys who had managed to score on their first attempt: Michael Hage, Gavin McKenna and Marek Vanacker.
Hage came down first and found no opening. McKenna was next and he stickhandled himself into the mud trying to outwit George. Finally, Vanacker swooped in to the dramatic drumbeat of nearly 40 sticks being slapped on the ice in unison. The slick sniper made a brilliant backhand-forehand move that fooled George. Just as Vanacker was about the slide the puck in the net, though, George whipped his blocker hand out, smacked his own stick paddle on the ice and snatched all bragging rights away from Vanacker. Not that the goalie is one to gloat.
“He made a nice move,” George said with a chuckle after practice. “I just got lucky on it.”
It’s fair to say good fortune has not been on Canada’s side of late at the WJC, as the Red and White have — almost unthinkably — bowed out at the quarterfinal stage in each of the past two tournaments.
Of course, the team’s fate has been dictated by far more than bad bounces and Canada will have to change something in its approach reclaim top spot in the U-20 hockey world. A roster riddled with first-round picks and a decent amount of NHL experience creates optimism for the 2026 event, which kicks off Friday in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minn.
The skill and experience Canada has in the crease, though, may wind up being as big a factor as any when it comes to writing a happy ending. Of the six returnees from last year’s disappointing squad, two — good buddies George and Ivankovic — are goalies. As the guy who made four appearances for Canada last year and posted a .936 save percentage, George begins this WJC with the inside track on starting big games. It’s a golden opportunity for him to help restore Canada’s pride at the tournament and maybe even help change a broader national conversation about goaltending the 19-year-old finds infuriating.
George may have been able to thwart many of his teammates in a shootout drill, but by no means does that indicate a lack of talent among the Canadian crew.
“It’s incredible,” George said of the on-ice skill level during camp at Gale Centre Arena. “I think all the forwards are first-round picks except for McKenna, who …”
George trailed off because anybody who pays attention to hockey at all knows McKenna is sure to be a top-three selection at the 2026 NHL Draft. And, yes, every other Canadian forward is a first-round selection. In all, Canada has six players who were top-10 picks and a half-dozen guys with at least one game of NHL experience. While Canada has no returning defencemen, Zayne Parekh — a snub last year along with his major-junior teammate, Michael Misa — is a top-notch offensive talent, while hulking Keaton Verhoeff could wind up being the No. 1 selection in June.
The four returning players up front are McKenna, Jett Luchanko, Cole Beaudoin and Porter Martone. They were there last winter in Ottawa when Matthew Schaefer — pegged to be the No. 1 NHL pick at the time and dazzling in the league this year — broke his collarbone in the second game of the event. From there, Canada struggled to score and stay disciplined in the round robin. Facing Czechia for a second straight year in the quarterfinals, Canada fought to find an equalizing goal with fewer than five minutes remaining in the third, only to see the clear underdog strike back and score a game-winning, power-play marker on George with 39 ticks left on the clock.
A tournament like that leaves scars and teaches some lessons. “There’s a bunch of learning experiences we all (gained) from last year that we can bring to this year and make sure that doesn’t happen again,” said Martone, a power forward picked sixth overall by the Philadelphia Flyers in 2025. “Adversity, how to battle adversity; that’s something we can do better with this year. You should have humility. Being humble, being a humble team, always be prepared to go against anyone.”
Even if many of the 2026 players weren’t there to experience it, there’s no question losing the way Canada has the past couple years ignited a fire under the collective tush of the team. And you have to believe more than one very skilled guy on the club is playing with a chip.
As noted, both Parekh and Misa — the latter being 2025’s second-overall pick to San Jose — are lead horses on the team now after being left off one year ago when they were torching the OHL. Then there’s McKenna, who carried unquestioned top billing for the 2026 draft for years, really, until recent weeks when Verhoeff and Sweden’s Ivar Stenberg began getting a lot of smoke. If McKenna wants to show he’s still the top draft-eligible prospect in the world, this is the stage to do it.
From the super-skilled winger on down, there sure feels like an unfinished-business element to this Canadian outfit. “I think we all have an extra level of motivation after last year,” George said.
One thing that also puts a burr in George’s saddle is the fact that — especially in a year when a best-on-best Olympic tournament follows the WJC in short order — there are ongoing conversations about a crease crisis in Canada. While the guy taken 57th overall by the L.A. Kings in 2024 can’t change the talk about the senior national team quite yet, he’s more than willing to go to bat for his Canadian goalie brethren.
“It kind of pisses me off whenever I hear that,” he says of the idea Canada has stopped producing high-end stoppers. “There are a lot of good goalies here in Canada and I think that’s kind of … (expletive). For me, I just personally hate when people say that and I think there are lots of good guys out there in Canada and I think we do a pretty good job of developing goalies.”
He may not be a finished product yet, but George is already evidence of that. He got lots of action as a U-16 player tending goal on an triple-A team in his native Thunder Bay, Ont. that was often overmatched. Owen Sound grabbed him in the 2022 OHL Priority Selection and it didn’t take long for Attack general manager Dale DeGray to figure out the club hit on a good one.
“When we played him that year (2022-23), in the 10 games we were allowed to, you could see he had an uncanny ability to really read (the play),” DeGray said. “Some goalies are really good puck-stoppers. But if you watch Carter, his hockey I.Q. on reading plays and where pucks are coming from or where they’re going to go to, that’s one of his biggest assets. He has the ability to read and react because he knows where pucks are going as the play is coming at him. He can really access what the situation is and that makes him a real strong goalie.”
George has already thrived on the international scene, playing a vital role for Canada’s team that won gold at the IIHF U-18 world championship in the spring of 2024. And while he was having a strong tournament less than a year later at the 2025 WJC, the way it ended versus Czechia obviously left a huge impression.
“I want to be the guy who is the backbone of this team,” he said. “And I want to make big saves for this team when they need it most and make that save with [40] seconds left this year and I want to be that guy who excels come elimination games.”
Whether picturing himself in a high-stakes scenario or reacting to those who knock the Canadian goalie scene, it’s clear there’s a vibrant flame glowing inside George. It’s housed in a tranquil exterior, though, and channelled through a steady style that’s as infectious as it is effective.
“That’s what he brings, a calmness that goes through the team,” DeGray said. “Steady the ship. ‘It’s OK, guys.’”
With George backing an extra-driven Canadian squad, it just might be this year.
