After a bitter shootout loss to the United States last year, Dante Fabbro had gold in his sights Friday night in Buffalo, New York.
Matching up against Team Sweden, Fabbro and his Canadian teammates found themselves in a tight battle as some of the finest teenaged hockey players in the world clashed for World Junior supremacy.
Canada thought they grabbed an early lead in the first period as Kelowna Rockets forward Dillon Dube appeared to have scored, but the goal was called back due to an early whistle from an official.
Dube made good on his second chance in the second period, giving Canada the all important 1-0 lead less than two minutes into the middle frame.
Sweden answered back before the period was up with a shorthanded goal, their fourth of the tournament, to send the game into the third period knotted at one.
With the clock winding down and the game appearing destined to go to overtime just like last year, Canada struck when Tyler Steenbergen redirected a long pass into an open goal to give Canada a 2-1 lead with just 1:40 left in the game.
Thirty seconds later Alex Formenton hit the empty net and Canada could officially countdown the seconds until they had secured gold.
While Fabbro was held pointless through the tournament, he played a key role in shutting down opposing players as Canada gave up just 11 goals during the tournament.
With his gold medal, Fabbro becomes the fifth former Penticton Vee to take home World Junior gold joining Norm Foster (Canada, 1985), Paul Kariya (Canada, 1993), Mario Lucia (United States, 2013) and Mike Reilly (United States, 2013).
