Coin Toss Drama Strikes Team USA At World Juniors

Team USA survived a scare from Czechia on Friday at the World Junior Championship in Gothenburg, Sweden, but not without a little coin toss drama before the game-deciding shootout.

And, no, Jaire Alexander was not involved...

The United States was undefeated after defeating Norway and Switzerland going into Friday's game but had yet to be truly tested. Czechia, meanwhile, suffered a tournament-opening loss to Slovakia, then defeated Norway.

The Americans are one of the top teams in the tournament and one of the favorites to win it all. However, you can never count out the Czechs, who always seem to have a solid team. If this iteration of Team USA didn't already know that, they won't soon forget it.

Czechia took the lead multiple times in the back-and-forth affair, but Team USA answered each time and sent the game to overtime.

The Czechs weathered a penalty kill and after five minutes the game went to a shootout.

However, that's where things got a little weird. To determine who shoots first, one of the referees flips a coin.

Team USA captain and Michigan Wolverine Rutger McGrorarty took part in the toss with Czechia's Jiri Kulich.

While this should've gone off without a hitch, it didn't. The coin hit the official's foot and landed in favor of Czechia. McGrorarty was not having it.

"I mean it hit your skate, no?" McGrorarty said.

"Yeah, yeah, it don't matter," the officials said.

I'm with McGrorarty. This is the World Juniors, not some beer league. Let's get a clean flip.

The Team USA captain tried once again to make his case about the bad flip, to which the official simply joked that he had "two big feet."

The Czechs opted to shoot first, and when McGroararty made it back to the bench he continued to express his frustrations about the bum coin toss.

"It was either a 50 or some other thing," he said." It wasn't a heads or tails. But it hit the ref's skate. Kinda bulls--t, no?"

However, he revealed that despite the questionable toss, Team USA got to shoot first, which is what they wanted all along.

The shootout was tied through 5 rounds and went into extras where Team USA's Isaac Howard sealed the win.

That was a nerve-wracking way to go 3-0-0-0 through the first three games, but it counts just the same.

The Americans are back in action on Sunday for their final group-stage game against a very good team from Slovakia.

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