Nurse does Canada and Hamilton proud

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Many Canadians are still celebrating last night’s thrilling gold medal win over Russia. And as our national junior team ended its gold-medal drought, a Hamilton-native played a huge part in making sure Canada secured the gold.

Before Monday’s World Junior Hockey Championship final between Canada and Russia, our country was ailing from a six-year gold medal drought. But it seems, all they needed was a visit from a Nurse.

Darnell Nurse: “You just go out there and compete, play as hard as you can not to lose your battles and that was really the mindset that I had.”

It was that mindset that helped Hamilton-native Darnell Nurse and his teammates gut out a 5-4 win against Russia and win the gold medal at the world juniors for the first time in six years. It also earned him player of the game honours.

Darnell: “I think I was still so amped off the fact that we got that gold medal and everything just kind of transpired really fast. It’s good to be recognized for going out there and playing the other side of the puck.”

With defensive plays like this, it’s hard not to give him the recognition.

Darnell: He was pretty strong and had good position, but I knew that when I had him in a vulnerable position, I could take him.”

Last night’s gold medal game between Canada and Russia was one of the more exciting world junior championship finals in recent history. But if anyone was ready for that level of competition, it was Darnell Nurse, for competition was part of everyday life at the Nurse household on the Hamilton Mountain.

Richard Nurse, Darnell’s Father: “Oh, we compete at everything. We compete at eating, we compete at driving, we compete. There’s nothing that goes on in this house that’s not a competition.”

While turning anything into a sport isn’t difficult when your father’s a former Ticat, your mother’s a former Marauder basketball player or you have sisters who played or are playing NCAA basketball — it made talking to each other a lot easier.

Darnell: “You know, that’s where the greatest advantage comes from — people who’ve done it before. Even with my younger sister who’s going through it now. Kind of just bounce stories off her and share different things.

Perhaps they share their father’s mantra that ‘you can always get better’: “You can be good or you can be great. There’s room for improvement.”

Darnell has very little time until he rejoins the Sault-Ste Marie Greyhounds of the OHL, what’s he going to do between now and then? He told me he’ll be kicking his feet up and catching up on some Netflix. Well deserved Darnell.