Rangers forward Colin Blackwell](https://beta.web.nhl.com/player/colin-blackwell-8476278) documented his experience on and off the ice as he competed in the IIHF Men's Ice Hockey World Championship alongside fellow Blueshirts Kevin Rooney](https://beta.web.nhl.com/player/kevin-rooney-8479291) and Zac Jones](https://beta.web.nhl.com/player/zac-jones-8481708).
Follow the Rangers this offseason on Twitter (@NYRangers) and Instagram (@nyrangers).
What a ride that was.
A lot's happened since my last check-in. For one thing, I'm back in the US. We flew back to Newark the morning after our bronze medal game, got in around 1 o'clock on Monday and then I drove back to Massachusetts. Hello, offseason.
We all know our World Championships story ended with a bronze medal for USA Hockey. But before we get to that, there's a lot of story to tell. After we finished as the top seed from Group B, we played Slovakia in the quarterfinals and ended up winning that one 6-1. When that round started, those are the games you really want to play well in. Those are the fun ones. I was lucky enough in that game to be in the right places at the right time, and my teammates found me and I started getting on the scoresheet. Things were finally falling for me.
Then came the semis against Canada. We all know how that one ended, too. That was kind of our gold medal game, in a sense - the winner of that game goes on and has a pretty good chance to win it all, and we knew that that was probably the biggest game of the tournament for us.
To lose - that was a heartbreaker. It was a hard-fought game. One bounce here and there, and we ended up losing that game. But that's where we had to dig deep as a team and as a group.
2021 World Championship Journal: Back Home with Bronze
We went all the way to Europe after a long hockey season. We went back into a bubble for an extended period of time where we weren't really able to leave the hotel. We maybe sacrificed seeing friends and family. As a group, we all gave up something to come to Riga and play for our country. So even though we had just lost probably one of the biggest games of the tournament, we still had a lot to play for, and it was up to us to turn around in 24 hours after that heartbreaker against Canada, put our disappointment aside and remember that.
The message around the room was it's not how you start, it's how you finish. To leave Latvia without a medal would have been really disappointing. So although we weren't going to be playing for gold, we were still fighting for a lot - fighting not only for everybody in the room, but also USA Hockey. There haven't been too many groups that have gone over to that tournament who have medaled, so there was still a lot to play for, and it's still an honor to bring some hardware home. I think everybody in our leadership group did a good job of getting the guys ready to play, and at the end of the end of the game, the final score kind of said it all.
Well, maybe not all of it.
We may have won the bronze medal game 6-1, but that game started off… not so good. In the first, like, 45 seconds, we had to kill off a high-sticking five-minute major. I think we were shorthanded for majority of the first half of the game. At the beginning, it could have gone either way, but our penalty kill and defense and Cal Peterson all stood on their heads, and it could have been a very different outcome if things hadn't gone our way. I think when you kill off that much time on a 5-on-3 and a bunch of different penalties in the first period of a game, the momentum can definitely shift, and I think for Germany, that was a little bit of a dagger in a sense. We killed off so many of their power plays in order to get the momentum going our way, and that really worked in our favor.
And just like that, we were in a medal ceremony, getting some hardware from our captains, Justin Abdelkader and Brian Boyle. That was a special moment. Getting a medal from people you're going to battle with for three-plus weeks, and seeing a guy like Abdelkader get to hand out those medals - some people get hurt in this tournament and they fly right home in order to start getting treatment, but he got hurt, came back and tried to play for us, ended up missing missing some more time, and he just stuck around and truly was a leader on and off the ice. It just showed how much it meant to him, and to get the medals from him and Boyle was so cool. It was the first time I experienced anything like that.
The medal itself is pretty heavy, to be honest with you. It's a little bit bigger than a softball and was definitely something that made our bags a little bit heavier coming back home. I'll take it, though. I had a bunch of the guys sign one of my sticks, and I'm going to try to frame the jersey that I got to take home with the medal and maybe some other things that I have from the tournament and turn it into a cool little piece that I can hopefully hang up in a man cave one of these days.
I haven't really gotten too much of a chance to reflect on the rollercoaster this year has been, but it's definitely been a very meaningful year for me and very special - how it started and how it finished. Me personally - I've come a long way, and it was such a big year for me. I'm 28 years old. This year, I was either going to prove that I was a full-time NHL player and prove that I could play, or maybe the other end of the stick where it might have been my last chance. That was my mentality coming into this year.
Even though the season didn't start off on the best foot, I was able to kind of climb the ladder and get to where I am, and I think it just shows that a little bit of perseverance, just putting your head down and going to work every single day - it pays off. To be able to play with some great players with the Rangers this year, to finally be able to prove that I can play, and then to finish the year playing in the World Championships for my country and being able to wear a letter on my chest, to bring home bronze… Everything kind of comes full circle.
I'm definitely pretty grateful and humbled for the opportunities that I got this year, and to make the most of it meant the world to me. So I'm pretty proud. It's not too often that I say that, but I think I can be pretty proud with the way this year went for me. I guess it gives me a little bit more motivation moving forward - once you finally get a taste of it, you want to continue and take that next step.
I'm just happy that I get a little bit of a chance to sit back and relax and look back on it now. That's where you'll find me till training camp.
See you soon, Rangers fans!
