Memorial Cup-winning captain Michael Bournival (left) and OT hero Anton Zlobin (The Canadian Press)

Know this much: junior hockey provides plenty of drama.

As 2012 draws to a close, it is time to reflect on the controversial, the riveting, the breathtaking, the simply out-there and buzzy moments that make the junior game so fun to follow. There was probably too much going on this calendar year to distill it down to just five stories, but here is BTN's best effort at taking in the zeitgeist of the junior game from the past 12 months.

Saint John coach Gerard Gallant (right) coached in the NHL for 7 years (OHL Images)Make it two Memorial Cup-winning coaches in 24 hours who seem headed for The Show — and this one is even less of a surprise. Multiple reports on Twitter have stated that Gerard Gallant, who guided the Saint John Sea Dogs to successive Quebec League titles and a Memorial Cup triumph in 2011, will become a Montreal Canadiens assistant coach under Michel Therrien.

Official news could come very soon; it looks like there was something to the Gallant-to-Montreal talk that started during the MasterCard Memorial Cup.

(Update: Station Nation has more. The Montreal Gazette is reporting Gallant and former QMJHL coach Clement Jodoin will be joining the Habs staff.)

Hearing #seadogs head coach gerrard gallant is headed to the nhl.#canadiens asst. Details to come.

— Daren Millard (@darenmillard) June 14, 2012

Saint John Sea Dogs coach Gerard Gallant is returning to the NHL as an assistant.Details to come. — John Moore (@rinkrant) June 14, 2012

Reports: Sea Dogs head coach Gerard Gallant to be

GROUP A: SWEDEN

Last year's finish: Fourth
Last year's round-robin record: 3-1-0-0

Yahoo! Sports has asked current Canadian Hockey League imports — some of whom are playing in the tournament — to break down their national teams.

Team Sweden has one quality going for it that cannot be measured — the hunger after missing out on a medal last season.

The Tre Kronor learned a painful lesson last season that this world junior tournament is all about peak performance. Coach Roger Ronnberg's team won its pool after upending Canada 6-5 in a shootout on New Year's Eve. But it had the tables turned on it in a come-from-ahead shootout loss to Russia, which it had beaten earlier, in the semifinal three days later and wound up fourth. The lingering memory of that and lack of a big-name star have made them a darkhorse. But they have some carryover from last year with six returning players, plus four NHL first-rounders.

"We're not the general public's No. 1 team, but I think that suits us real well,"

GROUP A: RUSSIA

Last year's finish: Gold medal
Last year's round-robin record: 2-0-0-2

For Canadian world junior fans, by far their greatest fear is a Russian team which possesses a physical edge that comes close to matching its mouth-watering skill.

Fans and commentators in the Great White North can quote chapter and verse the times teams wearing the Maple Leaf have made arguably more talented Russian teams back off in a big game. However, some of the mythology was punctured last January in Buffalo when Russia thrice came from behind in the third period to win what was considered a surprising world junior gold, scoring five answered goals to top Canada 5-3 in the final. They also displayed the same comeback competitiveness against Sweden in the semis and Finland in the quarter-finals, showing their talent was such that they didn't need to play a full 60 minutes.

Now they're back with the same coach, Valeri Bragin, and a bevy of high-end forwards. Russia, which beat the U.S. and the

GROUP B: CZECH REPUBLIC

Last year's finish: Seventh
Last year's round-robin record: 1-0-0-3

Yahoo! Sports has asked current Canadian Hockey League imports — some of whom are playing in the tournament — to break down their national teams.

There's a sense that Team Czech Republic is sick of the same old, same old.

One strong finish will not remedy the issues the structural issues in Czech hockey that have cropped up since the former Czechoslovkia dissolved in the early 1990s. That's a given. They would also need everything to break right in order to get on the podium in Alberta, but it could only be a matter of a few small improvements. Namely, tighter play in the defensive zone, better discipline and lights-out goaltending from Petr Mrazek, the Detroit Red Wings pick who was kept off the team by some red tape within the Czech hockey program for the past two years.

"The last medal they had was 2005, but it we play like a team, we can surprise and finish in a very good position," said

GROUP A: LATVIA

Last year's finish: Won Division 1A to earn promotion to the top division.
Last year's round-robin record: 5-0-0-0 (in Division 1A).

Gaining traction in the top division of the world junior championship is a slippery slope. There's no need to remind Latvia of that, given that the first point of reference for most with the Baltic nation is its game against Canada in 2010, which was a 16-0 formality.

With only the last-place team dropping down for 2013, Latvia is hopeful it can edge out Denmark and stay at the big kids' table for next winter, when the tourney will be closer to home in Ufa, Russia.

Coach Eriks Miluns will try to win with a lineup largely made up of 17- and 18-year-olds. First and foremost among them is highly touted NHL draft prospect Zemgus Girgensons, who is expected to be an impact player even though he's only 17.

"I'm pretty nervous because it's going to be tough for us playing all the big teams," Girgensons, who captains the USHL's Dubuque Fighting

GROUP A: SLOVAKIA

Last year's finish: Eighth
Last year's round-robin record: 0-1-0-3

Yahoo! Sports has asked current Canadian Hockey League imports — some of whom are playing in the tournament — to break down their national teams.

Losing the top junior-age players to North America has hurt hockey in Slovakia. One offshoot of it, though, is it has helped furnish the Slovakian national team them with a deeper and tougher blueline than it usually brings to the world junior tournament.

Typically, Slovakia boasts some highly skilled forwards — think a 16-year-old Marian Gaborik leading them to an improbable bronze medal in 1999 or Tomas Tatar and Richard Panik indulging Canada's sense of schadenfreude by bouncing Team USA in the 2009 quarter-finals in Ottawa — but might be spotty in other areas. This edition boasts four drafted blueliners who play major junior in Canada: Edmonton Oilers draft picks Martin Marincin and Martin Gernat from the WHL, OHLer and New York Rangers choice Peter

GROUP B: DENMARK

Last year's finish: Won IIHF Division 1A, earning promotion to the main WJHC.
Last year's round-robin record: 4-0-0-1 (in Division 1A).

Denmark is in a grey area between being a big fish in the small pond and swimming with the sharks in the world juniors’ top tier.

The Scandinavian nation is coming of age on the ice, buoyed by a growing interest in hockey and several individual success stories. Vancouver Canucks first-round pick Nicklas Jensen, who will be one of the team leaders in Edmonton, is just the latest. The best Danes can skate with almost anybody, but are still a far leap from being able to do more than just fill out the WJHC field.

The problem, as others have pointed out, is the Danes are good enough to score at will against Division 1A competition but aren't quite ready for the next step. To have a puncher's chance against the big boys, they might have to resort to playing a version of the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 1-3-1 trap.

"I would think that we're going to