World Juniors superfan Art Benjamin takes in 13th tournament

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Don’t ask Art Benjamin how much money he’s spent or how many kilometres he’s travelled to more than a dozen IIHF World Junior Ice Hockey Championships.

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He says he’d attend every year if only ticket prices weren’t so high.

“I’ve spent a small fortune,” he admits, “but it’s worth it.”

The first year he attended was 2005, when the tournament was hosted in Grand Forks, N.D. There he saw Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin face off as juniors amid a National Hockey League lockout.

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Benjamin was also in Vancouver the next year and in Ottawa in 2009, where many of Canada’s players went on to become NHL household names, including John Tavares, Jamie Benn and P.K. Subban.

Saskatoon was next. Then Buffalo, N.Y.

In 2013, Benjamin made the trip to Ufa, Russia, a round trip of more than 16,000 kilometres from his home in Winnipeg.

Since then he has also been to Helsinki, Montreal, Vancouver and Ostrava, Czech Republic.

Next year, the world junior tournament will be in Saint Paul, Minn., just a 750-kilometre trip down the highway from Winnipeg.

In all, this year’s tournament in Ottawa is the 13th Benjamin has attended.

This year, he’s one of thousands of superfans descending on the nation’s capital, with the hopes of seeing Canada reclaim gold after a disappointing fifth-place finish last year.

He keeps coming back, Benjamin says, because of the friends he’s made along the way and the parade of talented Canadian team members developing into tomorrow’s NHL superstars.

“They’re kids, they’re just kids and they’re going to the NHL,” he said, “and you get to see them progress. It’s just crazy.”

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In his travels, he’s made friends from coast to coast.

“We see all our friends here,” he said. “And we travel together all over the world.”

Benjamin says he prefers to support the IIHF tournament instead of the NHL because of the chance to see promising young players hone their talents before they step up to the big show.

The 2005 tournament, for example, saw a powerhouse Canadian team with a star-studded roster filled with players who may have already been playing in the NHL if not for the lockout and drawn-out negotiations that ultimately led to a league-wide salary cap.

That year Canada beat Russia in 6-1 in a marquee final, bringing home the gold medal to kick off a five-year tournament winning streak.

At this year’s Boxing Day showdown between Canada and Finland at the Canadian Tire Centre, dozens of other superfans donned jerseys bearing the names of legends from Team Canadas of yesteryear: Gretzky, Crosby, Iginla and Bedard.

Other rabid Canadian fans wore red morph suits (the full-body Lycra coverings that make people look like cartoon characters) and flew Canadian flags, and at least two spectators dressed as Santa Claus.

The Boxing Day game produced a 4-0 win for Canada against Finland, but the following night the home side lost to Latvia in a shocking 3-2 upset capped by an eight-round shootout.

Canada next faces off against Germany on Dec. 29, and the tournament hosts will play the defending-champion United States at the Canadian Tire Centre on New Year’s Eve.

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