What do you think?
Rate this book
Road to Gold: The Untold Story of Canada at the World Juniors
Celebrate another historic gold medal with the behind-the-scenes story of the Canadian World Junior program, from bestselling author Mark Spector.
On the world junior hockey stage today, Canada is known as the team to beat. They hold the record for the most gold medals won (seventeen since the tournament’s inception), their games draws millions of fans each year, and the tournament serves as a showcase for each year’s best talent.
But things weren’t always so rosy. For years, Canada languished in obscurity at the World Juniors. Wearing the red-and-white wasn’t a mark of honour but merely a sideshow to the players, owners resented the interruption to their league operations, and Canada was an afterthought at the tournament. Canada was supposed to be better at hockey than any nation on earth—how could the team languish in such obscurity?
So, the team set out on a reclamation mission. The Program of Excellence was born, and with it, a new hope for hockey’s future in Canada. No more would Canada be content with merely showing up. Instead, each year, the country would send its best talent—from Gretzky to Lemieux to Crosby to McDavid—to reclaim its spot at the top of the hockey world.
Tracing the owner disputes, off-ice antics, and riveting on-ice action of nearly forty years at the World Juniors—and full of inside stories from hockey greats—this is hockey history as you’ve never seen it before. Funny, smart, and clear-eyed, Mark Spector traces the remarkable rise of the Canadian World Junior program and shows how the World Juniors created not just a new team, but a new dream for the sport.
On the world junior hockey stage today, Canada is known as the team to beat. They hold the record for the most gold medals won (seventeen since the tournament’s inception), their games draws millions of fans each year, and the tournament serves as a showcase for each year’s best talent.
But things weren’t always so rosy. For years, Canada languished in obscurity at the World Juniors. Wearing the red-and-white wasn’t a mark of honour but merely a sideshow to the players, owners resented the interruption to their league operations, and Canada was an afterthought at the tournament. Canada was supposed to be better at hockey than any nation on earth—how could the team languish in such obscurity?
So, the team set out on a reclamation mission. The Program of Excellence was born, and with it, a new hope for hockey’s future in Canada. No more would Canada be content with merely showing up. Instead, each year, the country would send its best talent—from Gretzky to Lemieux to Crosby to McDavid—to reclaim its spot at the top of the hockey world.
Tracing the owner disputes, off-ice antics, and riveting on-ice action of nearly forty years at the World Juniors—and full of inside stories from hockey greats—this is hockey history as you’ve never seen it before. Funny, smart, and clear-eyed, Mark Spector traces the remarkable rise of the Canadian World Junior program and shows how the World Juniors created not just a new team, but a new dream for the sport.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published November 5, 2019
27 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 8, 2019
Road to Gold is the story of how the annual IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship Tournament rose to fame and became a holiday tradition in Canada.
Prior to 1981, Canada would send over its reigning Memorial Cup Championship team to compete in the tournament. The biggest problem being that the Memorial Cup was competed for in May and the World Junior tournament would happen the following December when the winning team would look very different. It just wasn’t working. Canada wasn’t competitive. During their annual meeting, the GMs of CHL teams were approached by Costello, a representative with Hockey Canada who was searching for a way to put forth a competitive team.
The solution? Create an all-star team of sorts. However, it would require the CHL clubs to provide their star players in the middle of the season. After some resistance, Costello threatened to go to the players and their parents himself and let them know they had the opportunity to represent their country on a world stage.
The GMs relented and thus the modern version of the tournament was born.
Author Mark Spector takes the reader on a journey through the years beginning in the 1980s to present day detailing the various ups and downs of Canada’s performances. By conducting dozens of interviews, Spector produces excellent play-by-play style breakdowns of the biggest games in the modern history of the famed tournament. Given the length of time Spector attempts to cover, he is not going to be able to hit on every year of the event’s history. That being said, I feel like Spector spent a little too long on the 2005 tournament. Granted, it was arguably the best team Canada has ever iced at the World Jrs, but a single chapter would have sufficed rather than adding a follow-up chapter on Crosby alone (who was the stand-out on the aforementioned team).
Above complaint aside, this is a solid read about Canada’s history at the tournament. Having grown into an annual tradition around the holidays while evolving into a multi-million dollar juggernaut, Mark Spector presents as comprehensive a history as possible of a Canadian institution in The Road to Gold.
Prior to 1981, Canada would send over its reigning Memorial Cup Championship team to compete in the tournament. The biggest problem being that the Memorial Cup was competed for in May and the World Junior tournament would happen the following December when the winning team would look very different. It just wasn’t working. Canada wasn’t competitive. During their annual meeting, the GMs of CHL teams were approached by Costello, a representative with Hockey Canada who was searching for a way to put forth a competitive team.
The solution? Create an all-star team of sorts. However, it would require the CHL clubs to provide their star players in the middle of the season. After some resistance, Costello threatened to go to the players and their parents himself and let them know they had the opportunity to represent their country on a world stage.
The GMs relented and thus the modern version of the tournament was born.
Author Mark Spector takes the reader on a journey through the years beginning in the 1980s to present day detailing the various ups and downs of Canada’s performances. By conducting dozens of interviews, Spector produces excellent play-by-play style breakdowns of the biggest games in the modern history of the famed tournament. Given the length of time Spector attempts to cover, he is not going to be able to hit on every year of the event’s history. That being said, I feel like Spector spent a little too long on the 2005 tournament. Granted, it was arguably the best team Canada has ever iced at the World Jrs, but a single chapter would have sufficed rather than adding a follow-up chapter on Crosby alone (who was the stand-out on the aforementioned team).
Above complaint aside, this is a solid read about Canada’s history at the tournament. Having grown into an annual tradition around the holidays while evolving into a multi-million dollar juggernaut, Mark Spector presents as comprehensive a history as possible of a Canadian institution in The Road to Gold.
January 30, 2022
This was a solid read about Canada’s history at the tournament. Author Mark Spector takes the reader on a journey through the years beginning in the 1980s and the creation of the Program of Excellence to present day detailing the various ups and downs of Canada’s performances. Conducting dozens of interviews, Spector produces excellent breakdowns of the biggest games and moments in the famed tournament.
That being said, at points I felt a little disoriented as the book does not work chronologically, but rather hops between a number of themes. From the origins of the tournament, to 16-year-olds playing, to the challenges of goaltending under pressure, to coaching and managing, to the famed Punch-up in Piestany. I think I would have enjoyed it more had it followed a more definitive timeline.
That being said, at points I felt a little disoriented as the book does not work chronologically, but rather hops between a number of themes. From the origins of the tournament, to 16-year-olds playing, to the challenges of goaltending under pressure, to coaching and managing, to the famed Punch-up in Piestany. I think I would have enjoyed it more had it followed a more definitive timeline.
June 7, 2020
I read a lot of sports books and often they just seem to be an extended wikipedia page. This was actually pretty good. In the early chapters it talks about how the World Junior Program was formed and getting the TV deal with TSN. This book is more the progression of how Hockey Canada and formerly the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association built from ground up the Program of Excellence. There are some chapters on the Greatest WJC team of all time (Grand Forks, North Dakota Tourny), Toews multiple goals in the shootout, Eberle tying the Semi vs Russia, The Punch Up in Piestany and the first and last ('19) WJ.
December 8, 2021
The book is organized thematically, in that chapters mainly look at different themes: the start of the Program of Excellence, the development of TSN's relationship, the pressure of winning, and so on. It is fairly light on a lot of details though, and skips a large amount of history of the World Juniors. However Spector does a good job of showing some interesting parts, in particular the post-WJC careers of Justin Pogge and Jeff Glass, but overall it comes across feeling a little lacking.
December 29, 2019
Great Back on the stories behind the World Junior Championship. A must read for every Canadian Hockey Fan.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 22, 2020
An emotional and well-written account of one of Canada's national treasures and how it came to be that. I laughed, I cried and I marveled at how far we've come. A must-read for any hockey fan!
April 7, 2020
Very interesting. Many great stories about Canadian hockey history, recent and old.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews