With World Junior gold on the line - and a 7:30 puck drop - Cole Eiserman, Danny Nelson and Jesse Nurmi had all day Sunday to let the nerves, energy and adrenaline take hold. The gold medal game would be the biggest stage Eiserman and Nurmi had stepped onto in their hockey careers and while Nelson was back for a second time, even an encore stirred plenty of emotions.
“The emotions of that day are crazy, it’s a whirlwind,” Nelson said. “We’re just itching to get to that game, it’s a later game, so when you finally get there, it's like okay, it's time to play. Everybody on Team USA had the right mindset. We all knew, hey, we have the team to go do this, so let's just go out there and win this thing.”
On the other side of the ice was Nurmi and Team Finland, who rebounded after dropping 4-0 decision to Team Canada in the first game of the tournament to win five straight games, including a semifinal over their archrivals in Sweden.
“It was big for Finland and Finland’s hockey history too,” Nurmi said. “Nobody thought we would be in the final after that first game or even before the tournament. When we made it, it was a pretty good feeling, and we were close to winning it all.”