What to watch this weekend and over the holidays

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Some sports to brighten the season:

World junior hockey championship

Last year in Sweden, Canada's three-peat hopes came to a crashing halt with a quarterfinal loss to the Czech Republic. This time, the Canadians are back on home ice in Ottawa, and they're slight favourites to reclaim the title over the defending champion United States.

Watch for Canada's Gavin McKenna, a slick forward for the Medicine Hat Tigers who leads the WHL in scoring and would probably be the No. 1 pick in the upcoming NHL draft if he was old enough. The Whitehorse native just turned 17 today, so he'll have to wait til 2026.

Canada's first game is on Boxing Day against Finland, followed by matchups with Latvia on Dec. 27 and Germany on Dec. 29 (all starting at 7:30 p.m. ET) before a New Year's Eve showdown against the U.S. to wrap up the group stage. If you missed yesterday's newsletter, here's our world juniors primer.

WATCH l CBC Sports previews what Canadians should watch over the weekend:

What to watch: Canadian Marielle Thompson competes in ski cross World Cup in Italy

Football

The expanded 12-team College Football Playoff kicks off tonight at 8 p.m. ET at Notre Dame Stadium, where the seventh-ranked Fighting Irish take on No. 10 Indiana. The Hoosiers were the most surprising team in the country this season. And they're quarterbacked by a Canadian, Kurtis Rourke, which is a rarity in big-time college football. The younger brother of CFL QB Nathan Rourke has thrown 27 touchdown passes and just four interceptions this year. We had more on Kurtis in Wednesday's newsletter. 

The other three