2005 World Hockey Championships

[Fit of Rage]

Whatever happened to Sergei Federov?

[Latrine]

Whatever happened to Sergei Federov?

He last played in the NHL as a free agent for the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. Don't know what he's done since the lockout or why he isn't playing for the Russian team. However his younger brother Fedor is playing in this tournament.

PS - Russia beat Finland, neener neener. However we do have a fairly weak team this year, we're undefeated but with so many close games and ties I don't think we can take Canada. But I'm hoping we can at least take bronze. So I guess I agree with most of Jeansi's predictions only with Russia instead of Finland.

[Troll King]

That was a very entertaining first round of playoff hockey. Every game was settled on a one goal difference and two of them went to shootouts.

Every team has shown that they have some flaws, so the next round featuring games of Canada vs Russia, and Sweden vs Czech Republic should be very good. I like the Czechs over Sweden as they've been more consistant, though they did have an unexpectedly close 1-0 game against Kazakhstan. Canada-Russia may be too close to call. The Russians are still undefeated but they've tended to be a bit disfunctional over the last few years. The Canadians come in from their best overall effort so far, but even then they had to battle back from a couple of deficits.

For the teams that have been eliminated, Slovakia was the best of the bunch and only Thornton's riser that the goalie should have had let them down. They shouldn't complain though because the officiating in that game favoured them. Most embarassing was that penalty that came after Gagne's goal. The ref gave a 10 minute misconduct but didn't award a power play because he ruled that it came before the goal was scored, except everyone else could clearly see that Gagne got checked while celebrating AFTER scoring that same goal. The Finns were game all tournmant long but they've shown a tendancy to lose leads in the third period. You can even look back to the World Cup I think when the same thing happened against rival Sweden. Until they can hold a lead and finish a team, they'll stay out of the medals. The Swiss were lucky to get to the playoffs and they can thank Latvia for getting shelled by Sweden to put them there. The Americans were a younger team this year, but I think coaching was a bit of a weak spot for them. There were some questionable calls by coach Laviolette.

[Jeansi]

As long as Brodeur is playing for Canada...I would like to say Canada takes it again!

Brodeur is the weakest link in the canadian team at the moment if you ask me.

[froedrick]

Brodeur is the weakest link in the canadian team at the moment if you ask me.

You're an idiot. Right now brodeur is owning up vs Russia

[Kim]

Brodeur is the weakest link in the canadian team at the moment if you ask me.

LOL wtf, how can brodeur, the guy that the team looks up to as a great goalie BUT NOT ONLY THAT, but as a ROLE MODEL and leader, how the hell can he be the weakest link?

[PredatoR_FNM]

You have to admit, Brodeur has average of 3 goals for a game in this tournament, its not that good. Far from it, Sokolov for example had 2 goals per game before this match and you cant blame those powerplay goals on him on this match really

Great game goin on right now, 3-4 at the moment (Brodeur not "owning Russia up", not even close.)

Kim, maybe he was talking about what happens in ice, not on locker rooms

[Jeansi]

Only game with canada I've seen so far was the one against Finland, and brodeur is the only reason why Finland tied against canada.

My guess is that they would have subbed him out if he wasn't the allmighty untouchable Broudeur himself.

[Krusnik]

Meh in my opinion Canada is not going to win this year. They tied with FINLAND thats pretty screwed.

[Troll King]

Sweden's blowing it against Russia. You can see the difference in the generation gaps of both these teams: Russia's next generation of skilled forwards is here and improving while Sweden is showing the loss of the kogs from their old generation in Forsberg, Lindstrom and Sundin.

[Jeansi]

ok I better take back what I said about brodeur, at least for a while. He held up Canada there in the end of the first playoff round.

[Latrine]

Czechs win. Nobody here is happy. Good game.

Seriously, anyone here Czech? All the USA, Canada, Sweden, and Finland fans here must be disappointed. Well, you Canadians shouldn't be too disappointed with silver, but you guys just got creamed 3-0. I'm kinda happy that Russia could at least take bronze with our spotty team this year.

[Troll King]

The Canadians just didn't play as physical a game as they needed to. Maybe it's because they weren't prepared to play two do-or-die games in two days while the Czechs players were in better shape after having played all season. The Czechs were a better all-around team throughout the tournament and they are worthy champions.

[PredatoR_FNM]

I didnt like the way some Canadians acted at the end, for example Smyth starting to hack and slash with hockeystick...man that was just idiotic behaviour and doesnt belong to hockey.

Overally it was a good game, I wanted Czechs win on the final, about time they won it too

Canada had great team and great first lineup which was taken care by Czech's defense quite well.

[edit]: phren ouned! :fear:

[Miku19]

I particularly didn't like the way Ryan Smyth handled Fischer in the end, bashing his feet and then starting a huge fight. And just a few minutes before that he sat 2 mins for something totally stupid. Way to be a captain!

EDIT: DAMN, Preddy was first.