It was a nail-biter of a game today for the Canadian fans watching the BEL vs. CAN game which decided which of these two worthy teams would make it to the final, and which team would be competing for bronze on Sunday.

The Canadians came out a bit flat, and the Belgians held a 3-point lead at one time in the game.  Canada went with it's top line as well as a 3–2–2–1 and a 3.5–3–1–0.5 lineup.  Another lineup included Patrice Simard (1.5) who looked particularly sharp and was an impact player in this game.  Joining him as a 1.5 was former 1.0 Dave Gagné of Québec City, who was reclassified at these World Championships after a classification protest was filed, and eventually upheld.  Joining Gagné on the reclassified athlete list was the aforementioned leading scorer of the tournament, Satoshi Ito from Japan, who went from a 2.0 to 2.5, and Manfred Bolliger from Switzerland, who took a big jump from 2.5 to 3.5.

Belgium played a tough game and were well coached.  At the end of the 3rd quarter, the score was tied.  We then went up by 1 and then a costly turnover doubled the margin in favour of Team Canada, which kept control of the ball for most of the remaining part of the game, eventually winning by that 2 goal margin, 31-29.  Belgium looked like they had run out of steam towards the end of the game, as the size of their team is the smallest at the World Championships.  The team is now preparing for the final against the USA, who looked particularly invigorated in their game against the Australians.