Canada's men's U18 team playing in the IIHF World Championships in Germany knew they were in for a tough match when they took on the United States in their first game on Saturday.

They might not have known just how tough it would be.  Canada, with Airdrie's Josh Davies from the Western Hockey League's Swift Current Broncos in the lineup, went down hard yesterday, falling 8 - 3 to the U.S. squad.

The Americans took a 2 - 0 lead after the first period only to have Canada tie it up on goals by Matthew Wood and Matthew Ward before the six minute mark of the second.  The U.S. came back with two more goals before Connor Bedard pulled Canada to within one.

After that, it was all U.S. as they scored four more to put the game away.

Davies didn't get in on the scoring for Canada and was a minus two for the game.  During the season with the Broncos, Davies had 16 goals and 20 assists in 64 games while accumulating 119 penalty minutes.

Canada will look to rebound against the host German team today.  This is the ninth meeting between Canada and Germany at the U18 worlds with Canada having dominated the Germans with a perfect 8-0 record and a +35 goal differential.  The Germans also are 0 - 1 in the tournament having lost to Czechia 4 - 2 in their opener.  

The game gets underway at 11:30 MT.  

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