The Søgaard conundrum

By Ryan McCracken on December 17, 2018.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com @MHNMcCracken

Danish netminder Mads Søgaard has placed his Medicine Hat Tigers teammates into quite a conundrum.

When your country’s success means your goaltender’s failure, which side of the fence do you choose? The answer isn’t as simple as you might think.

“I think you have to (cheer for Denmark) at this point,” said Tigers captain James Hamblin, who will watch his goaltender open the IIHF World Junior Championship with Denmark against Team Canada on Boxing Day. “You’ve got a lot of buddies, but the guy on your team? I feel like he has to come first in this situation.”

While Søgaard is certainly a fan of his captain’s perspective, not all of the 6-foot-7 Danish netminder’s teammates share in that sentiment. For blueliner Dylan MacPherson, it’ll be hard to hope against his home nation.

“Well, I’m Canadian and I’m cheering for Canada for sure,” said MacPherson. “I want to see them go all the way. But at the same time, having him in our room, it would be a huge confidence booster if he had a big tournament and came back even better.

“I’m definitely going to watch a couple more Denmark games than I usually do just because he’s in there.”

Medicine Hat’s fanbase seems to be siding with MacPherson. A recent Twitter poll asked Tigers fans who they will be pulling for when the puck drops on Boxing Day, and 75 per cent of the 122 to answer said their allegiance still lies in the Great White North.

Either way, every member of Medicine Hat’s roster is hoping to see Søgaard give the world’s best a run for their money. Søgaard won’t deny that he and his Danes are underdogs in their group — which will pit them against Canada, Russia, Switzerland and the Czech Republic — but he insists that dark horse mentality has been bringing him success at the WHL level all season long.

“I like that mentality,” said Søgaard. “It’s great to just go in there and not worry too much about what’s going on, what the standings say and stuff like that. I think we’ll just go in there and do our best. When we do that we come out successful.”

The Tigers will call up 16-year-old Grande Prairie product Garin Bjorklund to serve in Søgaard’s absence behind Jordan Hollett. Bjorklund — a first-round pick in the 2017 bantam draft — has posted a .919 save percentage and a 2.35 goals against average in 12 Alberta Midget Hockey League games with the Calgary Bisons.

“It’s exciting,” said Hamblin. “We’re really happy for Mads, it’s going to be fun watching him and we wish him all the best there. With Bjorklund coming up it’s going to be good to see him and get some experience with him. It’ll be good for him as well.”

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