Former Prince George Cougars centre Connor Bowie now knows the feeling of winning a hockey tournament for his country.
The 23-year-old from Fort St. John helped Canada capture the gold medal in hockey Wednesday at the FISU World University Games in Turin, Italy.
Canada defeated Slovakia 3-1 in the gold-medal match.
Bowie, a third-year business management student at Toronto Metropolitan University, collected three assists in eight tournament games at the FISU event.
Bowie played 222 WHL games over five seasons for the Cougars, including the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season. He was a former assistant captain and in his career he scored 40 goals and had 29 assists for 69 points.
Canada went 7-1 in the tournament, its only loss to Czechia, 2-1 in the preliminary round.
In other local results from the FISU biathlon events, Aliah Turner of Prince George was the top Canadian in the women’s 12.5-kilometre mass start race Wednesday. Turner, 18, went 15-for-20 on the shooting range and finished 25th.
The University of Calgary kinesiology student ended up 8:17.5 behind gold medalist Daryna Chalyk of Ukraine, who completed the course in 41:46.6.
Liam Simons of Prince George, 20-year-old chemistry student UBC-Okanagan in Kelowna, finished 27th in the men’s 15 km mass start. Siemens missed six of 10 targets in the two prone shooting bouts but was nearly flawless while standing when he went 9-for-10.
Simons finished the course in 52:59.3, 10:06.2 behind gold medalist Nathanael Peaquin of France.
The mass starts wrapped up the biathlon competition at the Games.
The closing ceremonies were scheduled for today.
