2024 WJC: Biggest Storylines at the Halfway Point

Norway's fight, Adam Gajan's dominance, and Germany's Upset over Finland

Now that each team has played two games in the group stage, we are technically at the halfway point of this year’s tournament. We’ve seen enough from each team to get a bit of an idea what we can expect from them for the rest of the tournament and can begin to make better informed predictions about what will happen in the latter half of the tourney.

Adam Gajan, Team Slovakia (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)

I wanted to take the opportunity today to go over some of the biggest storylines so far in this year’s tournament, the kinds of things that could have huge impacts on the remaining games. Let’s dive in!

Norway Won’t Go Quietly

After winning the second division of the World Junior Championship last year, Norway had one goal for this year’s tournament. Don’t get relegated. Norway has never survived in the top level of this tournament and they were hoping this could be the year they weather the storm.

The early results are really positive for Norway who were a real handful for the Americans in both teams’ tournament debuts. Team USA clearly believed they were walking into a rout, a game where they’d be dominant across the entire ice-surface, but the Norwegians had something else planned. Persistent forechecks, hard backchecks, and a stronger offensive showing than most thought possible gave Norway a real chance to give the Americans a scare.

While Norway still ultimately lost that game 4-1, and their following game 8-1 against Czechia, what they showed in those first two games was that they aren’t going to quit, and they absolutely won’t be an easy out at any point in this year’s tourney. They’ll need to win at least one game in the group stage (more on that later) to avoid the relegation match, but that no longer seems unlikely.

Germany Won’t be a Pushover

Germany has come a long way in recent years. It’s not long ago that they were one of those teams you saw on the schedule and expected a blowout, but that has been gradually changing. There were the Tim Stutzle, JJ Peterka, Mo Seider years where Germany was a serious threat in the quarterfinals, but even without high-end NHL talent on their roster, this year’s German team has been an example of the growth of junior hockey in Germany.