Three WHLers are currently in action at the two B-pool World Junior tournaments which are going on right now in Denmark and Switzerland. At the group A tournament in Switzerland, Prince Albert's Igor Revenko is playing for Belarus while Calgary's Bostjan Golicic is playing for Slovenia. You can follow that tournament at this link. Meanwhile, at the group B tournament in Denmark, Spokane's Stefan Ulmer is playing for the Austrians. You can follow that tournament at this link.
The winner of each of the two B-pool tournaments earns promotion to the main WJC tournament next year with the big dogs like Canada, USA, Sweden, Russia, etc.
In the A group, it's shaping up as a battle between Switzerland (who shocked many by being relegated last year in the first place) and Belarus, who are both 3-0 so far in the tournament. Revenko has four points (2g-2a) and a +5 with no PIM in the three wins so far. Slovenia took themselves out of the running in that tournament early with a loss to France in the opening game, although the Slovenes did later lay a 22-2 beating on the Estonians in what has to be one of the most one-sided thrashings at any serious level of hockey this year. For Slovenia, Golicic has one assist and 31 PIM in the three games. For a guy good enough to play major junior (which I'm sure at least some of his Slovene teammates are not), you'd think Golicic might have more than one point, especially considering they scored 22 goals in one game.
The Belarussians and Swiss meet in the last game of the tournament on Saturday and assuming both still have perfect records at that point, then that game will determine which country gets promoted next year.
In the B group, Ulmer & Austria are tied with Denmark and Norway at 2-0 after two games of the round-robin for everyone. Ulmer is leading Austria in scoring with five points (1g-4a) and a +6 in those two games.
The eventual winner of the pool will be one of those three teams....I would personally favor host Denmark (they do have NHL first round pick Lars Eller playing for them - imagine if they also had Mikkel Bodker instead of him being with Phoenix) but an Austrian win wouldn't surprise me either.
2 comments:
Hello:
In the South Sask Bantam League this year(if you consider that serious), THe Notre Dame Hounds clobbered the Melville Millionaires this past Sunday 25-0!!! Of Course Notre Dame is basically a AAA league team playing in a AA league but still impressive and one of the bigger blowouts I've seen at this leval since I started scouting a few years back.
Oh and here is a link...In World Junior Under 20 Division 3 in 2006 Iceland defeated Armania 50-0 and outshot them 114-10. Leading the way for Iceland was star forward Emil Alengard with 9 goals and 6 assists.
After two years playing in the Under 20 Division 2 pool, Iceland has once again dropped down to the Division 3 for this season. One has to wonder if Armenia is still lurking around in the Division 3 ranks. Also made me think if that Armanian team could even skate and how bad they would lose to Canada!
I forgot to add the link..oops.
http://www.iihf.com/Hydra/Tournaments_06/output/w20iii/hydra.iihf.com/data/iihf/output/xml/60/IHM060901_74_6_0.pdf
Also in the same tournament Lithuania defeated Armania 47-1...Rough start it was for the Armanians getting outscored 97-1 in their first two games. I wonder who decides who makes it to even partake in the Division 3 tournament? If anyone knows, let me know.
Tyler
PA Herald
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