Russia beats Canada for World Junior gold

NHL teams

Tschoubarov sent a snap shot from the left faceoff circle past the glove hand of Canadian goalie Roberto Luongo to bring a sudden end to the match.

The gold medal was Russia's 10th world junior title in the 23-year history of the event, matching Canada's record.

"I was very excited about the way the game was played," said Russian coach Gennady Tsugarov. "Both teams gave over 100 percent. We got a bit of luck and we're very happy with the result."

Canada was looking to win the gold for sixth time in seven years, but had to settle for silver for the evident disappointment of Canadian players. The Canadians were cheered loudly by the capacity crowd of 13,225 at the Winnipeg Arena during the presentation of the silver medals.

Russia, which lost the 1998 gold-medal final in overtime to Finland, dominated the game outshooting Canada 40-18.

Despite losing the final, the silver is a major improvement for Canada over last year's tournament where they finished worst-ever eighth.

"We struggled every way we could to get ourselves back into it but obviously it wasn't enough," said Canada's coach Tom Renney.

Simon Gagne and Bryan Allen scored for Canada and Maxim Balmotchnykh scored Russia's other goal.

Luongo made a flurry of key saves for Canada at the end of the third period to force the overtime and was named the tournament's top goalie after the game.

The other members of all-star team were Brian Gionta (U.S.), Vitali Vichnevski and Balmotchnykh (Russia), and Brian Campbell and Daniel Tkaczuk (Canada).

Earlier Slovakia beat Sweden for Bronze medals 5-4. Slovakia's captain Ladislav Nagy scored a hat-trick against uninspired Swedes who were still agonizing over semifinal loss to Canada.