Canada lost its quarterfinal game against Finland in a stunner at the 2019 World Junior Championship, and people want someone to blame. The target of that blame has become Ducks prospect and captain Maxime Comtois. Comtois, 19, notched four games in Canada's 14-0 win over Denmark and Canada went 3-0-0-1 in the prelims, but Comtois was criticized for diving throughout the tournament and missing a penalty shot in overtime in the quarterfinal loss.
Comtois' embellishing became a thing throughout the tournament.
Listen I know I poke fun at Canada a lot but, in all seriousness, I hope Max Comtois is okay after this. You never like to see this kind of gruesome violence out there pic.twitter.com/OLGpH5yZwO
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) January 1, 2019
Comtois (future Olympic diver / soccer phenom) world juniors highlight reel pic.twitter.com/W4tDIR8XwF
— morningstar300 (@lilyungjr) January 1, 2019
To the point he was targeted by other prospects, such as Klim Kostin.
Klim Kostin for tournament MVP pic.twitter.com/ows5PceS2G
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) January 1, 2019
Canada has won gold at the World Junior Championships just twice since 2010, but it did manage to win it last year. After preliminaries, expectations only soared. Then, to lose it like this:
After Comtois' missed penalty the sequence was too much for some people to handle. Comtois was blasted on social media for his effort, to the point that his agency -- Roy Sports Group -- stepped in with a statement.
This will be the only official statement regarding Max Comtois. Thank you. pic.twitter.com/EgNWrODqMC
— Roy Sports Group (@RSGHockey) January 3, 2019
"It is shameful and incomprehensible that a few cowards who can hide behind social media could make such vicious attacks on these young men's character after they have battled their hearts out for their country," the post read.
Comtois himself had a simple message about the penalty, telling TSN: "It's not the first time I'm going to miss an important one."
