SLEDGE TEAM NAILS SILVER

Canada’s National Sledge Team has earned the silver medal at the 2012 World Sledge Hockey Challenge, falling 1-0 to the United States in Saturday’s gold medal game in front of 1,300 fans at the Markin MacPhail Centre, Hockey Canada’s home arena at Canada Olympic Park.

Taylor Chace scored the lone goal of the game midway through the second period to lead the Americans to the win, and their second gold medal at this event.

Goaltender Benoît St-Amand (St-Hubert, Que.) made eight saves to keep Canada in the game, but the Canadians finished with silver for the second time; it was runner-up to the U.S. in 2009, in addition to gold medals in 2007 in Kelowna, B.C., 2008 in Charlottetown, April 2011 in London, Ont., and last November in Calgary.

Earlier Saturday, Norway beat Japan 5-0 to earn the Bronze medal. Loyd Remi Solberg scored once in each period to complete his hat trick, while Magnus Bøgle and Knut Andre Nordstoga scored the other goals for Norway and Audun Bakke tied a tournament record with four assists. Norwegian netminder Kjell Christian Hamar recorded his second shutout in as many starts against Japan this week, making nine saves, while his Japanese counterpart, Mitsuru Nagase, finished with 23 stops.

This is the second year in a row the Norwegians have taken home bronze from Calgary, having beat Japan 5-3 in the third-place game one year ago.

Norway has medalled at all six World Sledge Hockey Challenges, winning three silver and three bronze medals.

Canada finished first in the preliminary round with a perfect 3-0 record, including wins over Japan (11-0), Norway (4-1) and the U.S. (2-1).

The Americans came second in preliminary action, with victories over Norway (3-1) and Japan (8-0), along with their loss to Canada.

In Thursday’s semifinals, the United States beat Norway 7-2, while Canada shutout Japan 10-0.