So Canada West goes, not with a bang but a whimper, as the sole team to not make it to the World Junior A Championships semi-finals.

A team with two relatively high-end draft prospects and a cadre of legitimate late-round talent elsewhere looked so ordinary as to barely belong, finishing with one shootout win, three losses and a minus-five goal differential.

Worst of all, it seemed like the Western Canadians were just starting to find themselves. They beat the Russians 1-0 in the shootout twice in the same night on Wednesday — more on that later — and charged back from a 4-0 first period deficit to get within a goal of the Czechs in Thursday night’s do or die game.

“I think it’s good to get this monkey off of the back. We’ve got a great group of guys in there. Most games, we’ve been playin