Rock Posted April 13, 2005 Share Posted April 13, 2005 Canada begins camp for 2005 Worlds http://www.tsn.ca/canadian_hockey/news_story.asp?id=121296 Canadian Press 4/13/2005 There will be no Mario Lemieux, Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg or Sergei Fedorov at the IIHF world hockey championships this year, but the tournament still promises to be a better than ever. The lockout that shut down the NHL this season left all of the world's best players free to participate in the April 30-May 15 in Austria, but several big names have already pulled out. What's left are rosters a little better than most years, but not as strong as at the World Cup of Hockey last fall. Team Canada general manager Steve Tambellini says it will be tough to win a third consecutive world title. "I'd expect that with the European teams, 95 per cent of their players will have played the entire season," he said this week. "The hardest-hit teams will probably be Canada and the United States as far as getting up to speed." Many on Canada's team announced Monday in Calgary played for European clubs this winter, but some, such as goaltender Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils and defenceman Robyn Regehr of the Calgary Flames, will be going in cold. Tampa Bay Lightning stars Brad Richards and Vincent Lecavalier will miss the world championships with injuries sustained in Europe, while older veterans who didn't play this year such as Colorado's Sakic and Pittsburgh player/owner Lemieux opted out, as did defencemen Rob Blake of Colorado, Chris Pronger of St. Louis and Scott Niedermayer of New Jersey. But Canada still has a strong team, led by Dany Heatley of the Atlanta Thrashers, Joe Thornton of the Boston Bruins, Rick Nash of the Columbus Blue Jackets and Ed Jovanovski of the Vancouver Canucks. Tambellini feels it's a little deeper than the Canadian teams that won in Finland in 2003 and the Czech Republic in 2004. "Every team we put together is different, whether its (the 2002 Olympics) Salt Lake City or the World Cup or the world championships," he said. "We have some of the same parts that we had a couple of years ago, but we've added probably a lot more depth in a lot of areas." The Americans made a conscious decision to drop many of their best-known veterans from a national team that clearly had become too old. Only Mike Modano of the Dallas Stars and Doug Weight of the St. Louis Blues were kept from their core of veterans, while standbys like Tony Amonte of the Philadelphia Flyers, Keith Tkachuk of St. Louis and Brett Hull of Detroit were dropped. Sweden, which was beaten in the final by Canada last spring, will announce its team Thursday, but they already known they will be without their top two centres - Colorado's Forsberg and Toronto Maple Leafs captain Mats Sundin. Forsberg was injured playing in the Swedish league while Sundin did not feel up to it after not playing much this season. Still, the Swedes have talent in Markus Naslund of Vancouver, Henrik Zetterberg of Detroit and twins Daniel and Henrik Sedin of Vancouver. Russia put out a preliminary roster that did not include Anaheim's Fedorov, Sergei Samsonov and Sergei Gonchar of Boston or Tampa Bay goalie Nikolai Khabibulin. The Russians are all about their young stars these days and they're all playing. Ilya Kovalchuk of Atlanta, Pavel Datsyuk of Detroit, Alexander Frolov of Los Angeles and last year's top two draft picks, Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin are all on the list. Finland's roster has yet to appear, but they may be hardest-hit of all for no-shows. Reports say several top NHL players won't be in Austria, including Saku Koivu of Montreal, goalie Miikka Kiprusoff and defenceman Toni Lydman of Calgary, defenceman Aki Berg of Toronto and forwards Tuomo Ruutu of Chicago and Jere Lehtinen of Dallas. The Czech list has yet to be seen, but star right-winger Jaromir Jagr of the New York Rangers has confirmed he will play, although winger Patrick Elias of New Jersey cannot play due to a case of hepatitis. A preliminary list from Slovakia includes stars Marian Hossa of Ottawa, Zigmund Palffy and Jozef Stumpel of Los Angeles, Marian Gaborik of Minnesota and Ladislav Nagy of Phoenix, but doesn't list Pavol Demitra of St. Louis, Miroslav Satan of Buffalo or Ottawa defenceman Zdeno Chara. Teams have until 24 hours before the first match to declare their 23-man rosters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarlovyVary Posted April 13, 2005 Share Posted April 13, 2005 Um... The Czechs named a roster for a competition with the Slovaks. It's on www.hokej.cz/ I'm not sure if that's going to be their team for the World Championships. It included guys like Vokoun, Havlat, Vborny, Olesz.... I don't know what that stupid comment about Russia was about. They didn't not include experienced veterans so they could give their prospects a chance to play. Federov was considering playing, but he wasn't named to the preliminary roster. Khabibulan was offered the chance but he refused. Russia has no goaltending, unless Cincinnati doesn't make the playoffs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruins4777 Posted April 13, 2005 Share Posted April 13, 2005 Finns are screwed....thats sad cause i really like finland..erk. I was going to root for russia, but how is samsonov some kind of old dude? wtf? No rooting for them. Looks like i'm going with the czechs and canada for this tourney. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizDevil30 Posted April 13, 2005 Share Posted April 13, 2005 Love the picture. Oh man I miss Marty. Sorry to hear Elias is still recuperating; hope he's all better real soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek21 Posted April 14, 2005 Share Posted April 14, 2005 It's really hard for people here to get excited about it when it's hardly covered. When you add in the lockout, it takes even more away from it. It's nice that some good players will be participating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devilsrule33 Posted April 14, 2005 Share Posted April 14, 2005 It is the exact opposite in Canada and I hate it. The start of every SportsCentre is news about Team Canada and then ten minutes talking to all the analysts and were weeks away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarlovyVary Posted April 14, 2005 Share Posted April 14, 2005 Finns are screwed....thats sad cause i really like finland..erk.I was going to root for russia, but how is samsonov some kind of old dude? wtf? No rooting for them. Looks like i'm going with the czechs and canada for this tourney. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No, no.. Cheer for the Russians. Samsonov got injured during in the RSL, or he probably would have made the roster. I'm going to cheer for the Czechs just because I like them, and the Finns have a horrible roster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruins4777 Posted April 14, 2005 Share Posted April 14, 2005 blah sammy is injured? erk.... Russians become a possibilty with kovalchuk and all, but i'm not a big kaspuritus fan....ick. It will depend on who's in net. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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