Christian Wohlwend might as well have said, "I told you so."
The head coach of Team Switzerland couldn't help but refer back to his brutally honest pregame assessment of their chances in the World Junior Hockey Championship quarterfinal after Canada cruised to an 8-2 victory Tuesday night.
"See? See? It was just like the last exhibition," Wohlwend told reporters, including TSN's Mark Masters. "You guys saw it, everybody saw it, they're just better than us."
The Swiss coach's initial comments raised some eyebrows, but he insisted postgame that his players weren't bothered by them.
"No way, no way," he said with a smile, according to Masters. "They like me. I like them too."
As if Wohwend's first dose of honesty wasn't enough, he took it one step further when asked to predict the result of the semifinal.
"I think Canada wins the whole tournament, this is what I think," he said.
On Sunday, he offered an unexpected reality check when asked to evaluate his team's hopes against Canada in the quarterfinal.
"We are far away from them, still. They are faster, they are bigger, they are stronger, they can shoot better, they can pass better," he admitted at the time. "What do you want me to say? How many first-rounders do they have? And the rest in the second round. And the one in the fourth round who has played the most NHL games so far? We have one in the fourth round, too. One. And the rest are not drafted."
The remarks prompted Canada's captain, Dillon Dube, to theorize that it might have been an attempt at reverse psychology, and Canadian forward Sam Steel wondered if Wohlwend was "playing mind games."
Canada thumped Switzerland 8-1 in pre-tournament action, and with Tuesday's win, has now defeated Switzerland in all 22 games they've played in the history of the tourney.
Copyright © 2018 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.