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There was understandable insistence in the way Team Canada forward Cody Hodgson tapped his stick on the ice, demanding the puck.

When defenceman Ryan Ellis obliged, Hodgson took a stride toward the middle of the ice and ripped a low wrist shot through a defender and past helpless Swedish goaltender Jacob Markstrom.

It was his second point of the gold-medal game last night and served as a nice bookend to his assist on Canada's first goal, a power-play marker just 38 seconds into the game. And his third point, an empty-net goal with 32 seconds to play, delivered a little added satisfaction and the 2009 world junior hockey tournament scoring title.

Not that Hodgson sought to claim any credit after the game.

"I was playing with some unbelievable hockey players, Jordan Eberle and Zach Boychuk and Johnny [Tavares] on the power play, obviously, I think every time I threw to them it was in the net," he said.

The world junior championship was supposed to be a showcase for Tavares and Victor Hedman of Sweden — who are expected to be the first and second picks in next summer's NHL draft — but somewhere amid all the excitement, Hodgson sneaked away with the tournament.

His final point tally was one better than Tavares's to lead the tournament, and Hodgson was equally as deserving a candidate for most valuable player of the tournament — an honour bestowed on the more pedigreed Tavares. But the lantern-jawed 18-year-old, who plays for the Brampton Battalion of the OHL, provided a two-way package unlike that of any other player in this year's junior championship.

"Hodgson was definitely an unsung hero. He played extremely well every game, he did everything. He logged a lot of minutes, he defended well, he played against the other teams' top lines and he shut them down," Canadian defenceman P.K. Subban said.

Hodgson, selected 10th overall in last summer's NHL draft by the Vancouver Canucks, quietly matched budding superstar Tavares point-for-point (Hodgson notched five goals and 11 assists, going plus-8), while also seeing time on Canada's top penalty-killing unit, which allowed just four goals in six games.

In the waning stages of the second period in the gold-medal game, Hodgson was on the ice for a Swedish five-on-three power-play and, using a combination of guile and brawn to outmuscle a pair of defenders, grabbed control of the puck and dumped it to neutral ice. He did it twice on the same shift.

And this is what a committed hockey player looks like: You gather the puck behind your net and start the rush, head-man it to a linemate, jump back into the play to take a return pass and knife a diving shot off the goalpost, get back on your skates, win the puck back and force an opposing defenceman to use all means fair and foul to take you into the boards.

Hodgson, who did all that and more in a dizzying first-period shift, is such a player.