James Hamblin leads Canada White to 5-3 win over Canada Black at U17 Challenge

DAWSON CREEK, B.C. – James Hamblin had two goals and an assist as Canada White opened up the Under-17 Hockey Challenge on Sunday with a 5-3 win over Canada Black in round-robin play.

Austen Keating, Ian Mitchell and Gabe Vilardi also scored for Canada White (1-0-0) while Owen Tippett added two assists.

Canada Black (0-1-0) got goals from Stelio Mattheos, Arnaud Durandeau and Alex-Olivier Voyer.

Matthew Welsh made 26 saves for the win as Jacob McGrath turned aside 27-of-31 shots in defeat.

Canada White went 2 for 9 on the power play while Canada Black scored twice on three chances with the man advantage.

In other preliminary-round action, MacKenzie Entwistle, Shawn Boudrias and Antoine Morand found the back of the net and Michael DiPietro made 31 saves as Canada Red downed Finland 3-1.

Also, Maxim Zhukov made 33 saves as Russia downed Sweden 5-2 and Scott Reedy had a pair of goals as the United States handled the Czech Republic 6-1.

Round-robin play resumes on Monday. Canada White plays the Americans (1-0-0), Canada Black faces the Czechs (0-1-0), Canada Red (1-0-0) battles Sweden (0-1-0) and Finland (0-1-0) goes at it with Russia (1-0-0).