From CTV News:

The Canadian Press

Date: Sunday Dec. 4, 2011 10:10 AM ET

CALGARY — Greg Westlake's clutch performance earned Canada a gold medal at the World Sledge Hockey Challenge.

Westlake had a hat trick as Canada downed the United States 4-1 in the final Saturday.

"(Westlake) gets bigger as the games get bigger," said Canadian coach Mike Mondin. "We can really count on him."

With the game being broadcast to a national television audience, Westlake said he was happy to help Canada emerge with the victory.

"We were waiting for that game all week," said the Canadian captain. "We're so proud of what we do. We couldn't wait to show it on TV across Canada. We got that opportunity and we didn't squander it."

Brad Bowden also had a goal and three assists for Canada in front of an appreciative crowd of about 700 people at the new WinSport Athletic and Ice Complex.

"We're the first tournament here in this new building," Westlake said. "We definitely wanted to kind of christen it with a win. It was an absolute blast."

Canadian goalie Benoit St-Amand made 13 saves to pick up the win.

Taylor Lipsett scored for the U.S., while netminder Steve Cash stopped 15 shots.

"I was very disappointed in our performance," said American coach Jeff Sauer. "Give all the credit to Canada. They took advantage of our mistakes. They're a good team. The pressure was on them and they rose to the challenge."

Earlier in the day, Audun Bakke scored twice in the third period to help Norway capture the bronze medal by virtue of a 5-3 win over Japan.

Just 15 seconds into the gold-medal game, Cash made a nice save to stop a low shot by Anthony Gale.

At the other end of the ice, Lipsett took a shot from a bad angle and it somehow snuck past St-Amand, from St-Hubert, Que., to give the U.S. a 1-0 lead 53 seconds into the first period.

"I don't think I was on my post correctly, so the guy took a chance and shot it off my blocker and it went in," St-Amand said. "I knew these guys were going to score two or three afterwards, so all I had to do was make sure they didn't score another one."

Westlake, from Oakville, Ont., then converted a feed from Orton, Ont., native Bowden at 14:44 to tie the game at 1-1.

The Canadians had a pair of great chances to pull ahead on a late power play in the first, but Cash first made a blocker save to turn aside a shot by Marc Dorion, before reaching behind him to make a glove save to thwart a scoring attempt by Billy Bridges.

Canada went up 2-1 at 8:18 of the second period when Bowden flipped a pass out from behind the U.S. net to Westlake, who quickly snapped a shot to the top corner past Cash.

"It's just one of those games where you have a connection with your linemate," Bowden said. "I just knew where he was. That's something special we have as linemates. We've had that for many years."

The Americans didn't register their first shot of the second period until just after the 13-minute mark. St-Amand easily stopped the low shot by Alexi Salamone before smothering the puck to force a faceoff.

Westlake completed his hat trick at 3:25 in the third when he fired a shot from the slot past Cash just seconds after a penalty to U.S. captain Taylor Chace expired.

Less than two minutes later, Bowden snuck in behind the U.S. defence for a breakaway and slid a shot under Cash for an insurance goal for Canada.

"That fourth goal was the biggest goal of the game," Westlake said. "It iced the game for us."

Link:
Canada beats U.S. 4-1 to win sledge hockey gold | CTV News