Pickering nabs bronze medal at U18 championships

Canada may not have come away with three consecutive gold medals at the U18 women’s world hockey championships, but Avery Pickering still came back to the country with another medal around her neck.

The St Adolphe 17-year-old picked up three assists and a plus-seven rating while playing defense for the bronze medal-winning Team Canada at this year’s edition of the tournament.

The Canadians were defeated 4-2 in the semi-finals by Czechia, as Klaudie Slavickova tallied to put the Europeans up 3-2 mid-way through the third period, sending the country to their first-ever gold medal game at the tournament.

Czechia fell to the Americans 5-1 in the final, with Canada destroying Finland 8-1 in the bronze medal match, out-shooting their competition 52-12.

Canada boasted the tournament’s most valuable player, as defender Chloe Primerano set a new all-time record for points by a defender with 16.

Primerano said she hoped Canada can bounce back next year.

“I think it taught us a lot, just to not take any game for granted,” Primerano said.

“You have to come out flying every game. Every team is good in this tournament. Next year, we’ve got to come out and work as hard as we can and try to not let what happened this year happen again.”

Pickering will now return to Colgate University, where she is a valuable player, logging top-four minutes despite her age for the top-10 ranked Raiders, despite her younger age.

“She loves to play a puck possession-style game,” Colgate head coach Greg Fargo told the Winnipeg Free Press before the tournament.

“She’s a modern-day defenceman. She can attack down off the blue line in the offensive zone. She’s very much an interchangeable piece amongst our group of five that are on the ice. Sometimes you’ll see her down below the offensive goal line. I think it speaks volumes for her, because sometimes we’ve seen defenceman come in and it takes a couple of years for them to truly get comfortable.”

Pickering graduated high school a year early, and was the only college player to play for Canada at the U18 championships.

With files from Mike Sawatzky