EHM The Blue Line

It's only the preliminary round right now, but is anyone follow the WC?

As i'm typing, France is having its first game against Switzerland and is down 1-3 after 2 periods. Shoots are 38-15 for the Swiss team, who is clearly faster and stronger. Plus, the frenchies were too undisciplined in the first period, with 5 penalties Huet is having a huge game so far and keeps his team in the game, even if there's nearly no hope for a win...

Time for the 3rd period!

France has a hockey team?

Hey mon - Jamaica has a bobsled team! Crazier things have happened.

I watched Canada tune up Slovenia yesterday afternoon. Their top line is just going to eat this tourny alive: Nash - Getzlaf - Heatley

I think I speak for many Americans when I say: "The World Championships are being played?"

Yup, this Nash-Getzlaf-Heatley line is pretty scary

France finally lost 1-4, Huet allowing a stupid softy 30 seconds into the 3rd period. But well, if he wasn't there, the final score should have been something around 8-1...

OttawaSenatorsRule wrote:France has a hockey team?

Yup, and even a NHL goalie! Can you believe it? France is actually ranked 19th at the IIHF. Which means very far from the top teams, but not ridiculous either. During a long period, the team was vastly made of Quebequers who weren't good enough to play for Canada and therefore decided to play for France. But since last year, France finally has an independant hockey federation and started to devellop its own talent. Before that, hockey was just a part of the Ice Sports Federation, along with figure skating or curling And even this way, we managed to make some presence in the WC group A, and even a 1/4 Finals at the Olympics of 1992. So now that we have a real fed, there are some hopes from improvement in the upcoming decades

Btw, our next opponent is Sweden Sure, the Swedish team doesn't look great this year (they won only 6-5 against Belarus today), but they'll trounce the little frenchies

Wow...Kinda cool to see Huet joining team France,though not many have heard of it having a team even
And on your question,yes,I'm watching it too...Saw how Canada kicked Slovenia's butt.

Nash-Getzlag-Heatley I can't think of any team except Russia whos' 1st line comes even close.They have Ovy the Great at least But you're right,this line is gonna do some damage for sure.

Stinson--The rest of the world is playing a world championship. The Americans are just there as fodder like the French. Gotta have a couple teams to beat up on.

Oh wait..that other fodder is Slovenia. Right. Oops.

I think Team USA has Garth SNow in goal, and Donald Brashear as their captain.

Nope... looks to be Craig Anderson, Robert Esche, and Tim Thomas

at least you can get into the world championships....

I laughed my ass off at power rankings, which are updated every day on the IIHF site. Not the rankings itself, more the comments that are included.

May 3
9. Denmark - ,If we’d kept up our first-minute pace, we’d have beaten the Czechs 60-0'

13. Belarus - ,Hope you saved some goals for the rest of the tournament'

15. Italy - ,Mamma mia, those Russians are faster than Ferraris!'

May 2
6. Sweden - ,Mats Sundin won’t waive his no-movement clause to return to Quebec City'

12. Belarus - ,Go Flyers Go!'

14. Slovenia - .My name is Anze, and I need help'

Belarus 5 Sweden 6. All I can say Swedes out there..is thank god Tommy Salo was not in net for you.

Actually Anze got help against Canada. The goalie stopped 60 of 65 shots against the Nucks. Inlcuding 28-31 in the 2nd period alone. He was unebelievable. Cannot recall the name.

batdad wrote:Belarus 5 Sweden 6. All I can say Swedes out there..is thank god Tommy Salo was not in net for you.

Actually Anze got help against Canada. The goalie stopped 60 of 65 shots against the Nucks. Inlcuding 28-31 in the 2nd period alone. He was unebelievable. Cannot recall the name.

Me either - but he had great hockey hair. That made all the difference.

I was at Quebec for Friday and Saturday's game.

Here's my ratings:

Craziest fans: The Danes
Nicest crowd: Swiss singing all game long (in french, german and italian!!) except I got covered by their beer after their first goal
Best game: Sweden B-team vs. Belarus
Fan's favorites: Ovechkin, Radulov and Huet
The best dancer: Champion, the polar bear mascot
Nicest jersey: France's "poulet"
Captain Courage: Laurent Meunier
Mister Invisible: Patrik Elias

I really enjoyed the experience. We clearly need more fan singing tradition in North American. Olé Olé and Hey hey good-bye isn't enough

Can somebody tell me what the Russian/Belarus rallying cry means? Sound something like: "Shaï-bo".

Canada-Latvia: 7-0. Not a big surprise. Latvia played well though, and forced Leclaire to make some big saves. Too bad for them their first goalie allowed 6 goals.

Hey holydogg, it seems you really enjoyed some French stuff in your trip Nicest jersey for our poulet, and captain courage... Well, along with Huet, that's pretty much all what we have

Shadd666 wrote: Hey holydogg, it seems you really enjoyed some French stuff in your trip Nicest jersey for our poulet, and captain courage... Well, along with Huet, that's pretty much all what we have

I was impressed by the French, they were very better than I was expecting. I'm sure France vs. Italy will be a nice match-up, both teams are very combative, but they lack talent compared to the traditional hockey powerhouse.
And the french got two former Habs: Bordeleau and Huet!
So having them versus somekind of personal demi-god, Paul DiPietro (also a former habs) that was a nice game for me

The Swiss behind me called the Frenchies "poulet" (for the rooster on the jersey)
Did the Swiss and the French got some kind of sport rivalry or they are just naturally loudmouthed?

I was expecting more from the Swedes, but today I've read in the Newspaper than like 20 NHLer refused to join the teams, that's why they didn't play the level I was used to see them.

The Kostityn brothers will join belarus, so watch out! The White Russians can cause a surprise in their relatively average group.

What channel are the World Championships on in the USA?

they likely are not on anywhere

holydogg wrote:Can somebody tell me what the Russian/Belarus rallying cry means? Sound something like: "Shaï-bo".

I think it means something like "Goal." I'm sure the Russian members can be more precise.

We'll play Norway today... another sure win for Team Finland.

holydogg wrote:Did the Swiss and the French got some kind of sport rivalry or they are just naturally loudmouthed?

In fact, both We've got a little friendly rivalry with Switzerland, as they are our neighboors. And the French population is pretty loudmouthed, even if they rarely know why or what about they open their mouthes

Sweden vs. France tonight, and then I mean to night, at least here in Europe. Too bad I wanted to stay up and watch the french getting slayed. With 8-4 or something.

Bring it on!

Finland 3 - 2 Norway OT.

Not very convincing. I hope we can get it together by the Slovakia game on wednesday.

Two periods in the books between France and Sweden, and the damage is done, as Sweden gets a 4-0 lead. It was 0-0 after the first period. France had a powerplay about 5 minutes into the second period, but then took two consecutive stupid penalties. Sweden scored and finally get some confidence into that game. France will be slayed, as they are pretty resilient. They play with heart and desperation, but really without talent. Sweden is really not impressive though...

Huet is resting for Belarus, so Fabrice Lhenry is in goal for France.

Shadd666 wrote:Sweden is really not impressive though...

Yeah, I got the same feeling seeing them saturday. I hope there's someone better than Tellqvist hidden in the Elitserien or maybe Henrik Lundqvist will join in...

They actually play with Stefan Liv in goal, one of the best goalies in the Elitserien. Impossible to judge his performance tonight, as he faced only 11 shots so far in 53 minutes, while Sweden is leading 8-0.

EDIT: okay, so 9-0 final score for Sweden... Huet came in at the end of the game, as Lhenry was totally lost in net... But Cristo allowed a very soft goal... It was just a little dump from outside the blueline, and it ended between his legs But well, the score was already 8-0 with less than 2 minutes to play, so it didn't change a lot of things... France played really brutal though, with a huge lack of discipline (around 35-40 penalty minutes ). However, when at 5-on-5, they played barely at the same pace as the Swedish... which is not really a good new for Sweden... Especially since France only looks to avoid relegation...

Sweden wasn't impressive in the first period, but in the second and third Sweden's play became better. The swedish coach wasn't happy after the first, but which swede would have been.

Now the focus is on the game against Switzerland, a game Sweden should win but you never know.