No gear, no problem for Team USA

CEDAR RAPIDS - It sure wasn't a gold-medal start for Mark Carlson and the four Cedar Rapids RoughRiders players who were part of a United States team that won the World Junior ‘A' Challenge international hockey tournament in Prince Edward Island, Canada, last week.

Carlson, the RoughRiders head coach and general manager, led the U.S. to first place at the 2008 Challenge and figured the best way to do things this time around was to arrive at the tournament site (Summerside, Prince Edward Island) a day earlier in order to get in an extra practice.

The American delegation flew from Chicago to Halifax, Nova Scotia, with no problem. Make that one huge problem.

“We go through customs, which takes awhile because they didn't have a whole lot of people working at the airport,” Carlson said. “We make it through, then head over to the baggage carousel. No bags.

“Forty-five of our bags are left in Chicago. Here we are three or four hours from Summerside, and it's like a scene out of the 1960s. Everybody is filling out all this paperwork. It took forever. The kids didn't get their equipment for a day and a half.”

So much for that extra practice.

“Two days in the same clothes,” said RoughRider Mike Parks, who joined Cedar Rapids teammates Jeff Costello, Derek DeBlois and Mac Bennett on Team USA. “We couldn't practice, couldn't do anything. That kind of sucked.”

As did Team USA's first game, a 5-4 shootout loss to Canada East, in which the Americans blew a 4-1 third-period lead thanks to a series of unlucky events. The rest of the tournament went considerably better, as Team USA won its next three games, including a 2-1 victory over Canada West to once again take home gold.

“The gold medal is sweet,” Parks said. “It looks really awesome.”

“You show up there, you don't have much practice time with the team,” Carlson said. “You just try and get all the guys acclimated to each other, put a plan together and go out and play.”