The United States World Junior team started the tournament off with a merciful bang. The Finns, too busy debating over whether their version of Scrabble should be half ‘N’ tiles or all ‘N’ tiles, were clearly outmatched the entire game except for the 20 seconds or so in which they were allowed to score. The rest of the time, the U.S. team was much better, including intermission, and Jason Zucker was excellent in the inner tube race before the national anthems.

The game started off with a power play goal from True American Justin Faulk who scored on a slapshot from the point the American Way. Small children in American households will now likely be practicing dropping bombs on the Finnish net from the point like General Petraeus is in charge.

The Finns answered back with a goal that the Americans were merciful enough to let into the net. Attempting to stay under the radar means the Americans will purposefully win close games rather than show off against pathetic opponents like Canada. The US squad is, in fact, so comfortable they let Jeremy Morin and Brock Nelson have the night off, and might even allow them to spend a few days not playing.

Later, Zucker scored off a turnover that came as the Finns were busy debating whether their word for “short side” had 35 letters or 36. With their 2-1 lead completely intact the US sqaud showed off its skill again. Kyle Palmieri skated through their entire team twice and was kind enough to leave the puck next to the post so as not to run up the score. Jeremy Morin showed off his deadly shot with a nice timing play to get the goal waved off by an official who felt Finland had already had their feelings hurt badly enough.

Seeing his point, the US wasn’t done being generous to the Finns. They allowed the Finnish team to tie it up on a weird bouncy goal, to show clemency and compassion to the outmatched Scandinavians. This sent the game to OT where Nick Bjugstad, fresh out of being cleared as a real American and not a Northern European spy, scored on a soft wrist shot to demonstrate the Americans ability to score at will.

Game one: in the books.