Asunto: US National Team

I suppose like Capsaicin I should give an update on the senior team. The USA has won two out of 5 friendly games. It is important to keep in mind when it comes to these games that they do not count. I am not playing the first line nor the starting goalie and am focusing on depth players to give them chemistry in case I need to make call us for WC.

Since we are two and a half months away from the world championships I took at look at the other teams in the group. Here is my report on the other teams so far. As a reminder this is the list of teams in the group. Portugal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, United Kingdom, Serbia, Bulgaria.

Bulgaria: This is the winnable game for the USA due to the lack of skill that the Bulgarian team has. Now of course anything can happen in World Championship and while playing them we would be the favorite the tactic picking could decide who wins and who is knocked out.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: This team is a bit stronger then Bulgaria but does not have quite the level of talent the USA has. But they are not far behind and would be an interesting team to play when the World Championships begin but one we should beat.

United Kingdom: They have one really great player with an OR of 2948. Dare I say he may reach 3000 before he retires. The team after him is solid and has depth through all the lines. The UK is a tough out for any team and they are going to be near the top of the group just like last year.

Portugal: Portugal is the first team we play in World Championships. They are very close to us on paper and they have a lot of interesting players so they are a wild card team. I think they could give us a run for our money. Another edge for them is that the team is older so I assume they all have more experience. This year I had to remove many players so many USA players this year are the age of 25 or even younger so they will be the more experienced team.

Serbia: This is the team that I think will win the group and could win the whole World Championship. The amount of players with highly trained skillsets they have is nothing short of amazing. Our top players most likely would be third liners on the Serbian squad. I am really jealous of the quality of players at which they have at there fingertips. To think that this Serbian team got knocked down a level to be in I speaks to the talent at the Top level.

Overall view: Most likely we will be making it as a 3rd or 4th seed in the group. Short of an amazing upset I highly doubt we can make it past the more complete teams. My goal for the season is to advance past group stage and win our the quarterfinal game should we make it that far. Having a higher seed would help but depending on the team we face(Canada beat us up front when we had the number one seed and they were number four seed)it may not matter.

What worries me is the future players of the USA team really need to be trained to higher levels then ever before just to catch up the other teams. I feel like the team is 3-5 seasons away from being true contenders to reach Top level in the senior division. There are many great players out there but they need to be trained with the right skills in mind in the best training locations and staff which take a large amount of money and time to develop. The good news is the improving nature of the USA 18 and USA 20 teams being in top division of their leagues mean those future players once they come of age will be better then the ones who came before them.

With that in mind I want all USA Managers to keep training your players and keep improving them every day little by little. As it stands the USA team is only as strong as the players we produce and right now we need to produce more then ever before to reach the highest peaks of the world stage. The USA has had great teams in the past and I know we can do it again today but only if we take the right steps. This is my report I will give another report in one months time.

I have been wondering about an interesting little topic. I got the notice for the 14 days to submit a bid for hosting world Championships. I noticed that no other countries have placed a bit to hold the world championships. I am thinking if this is the case then perhaps the USA could submit a bid to host this years world championships. While we may not win this year we would be recognized as a growing hockey power and we would gain a "home ice" advantage for the championships. Thoughts? If any manager would like to support me on this please let me know. We would need a few really nice arenas to hold the games in and to create our Bid.

We've submitted a couple of bids before and won once. Arenas aren't an issue, it's the art that is. Up to 4 people can be listed as tournament organizers though, so for those who do contribute to the bid, there's a nice little prize of 100 credits each if we won the bid.

I would definitely be interested in helping, but Cory is right, we would need some good art work to win.

True. Anyone a good artist?

Hmm maybe we could get a graphic artist to help out.

I can donate some credits, the artist who did my ice can be contacted

Can you contact him and see if he/she would be willing to do the art?

You can just give the graphic artist one of the 4 spots, and PPM will give the graphic artist 100 credits, if they are still doing that.

It looks like there are already 3 bids to host the division I senior team tournament. 1 or 2 of them will likely be weak bids with no graphic art or website. There is only 1 bid for the top division U20 and U18 teams.

I'd help if there's some way I can help, but as far as art, they best I could contribute would be something thrown together with Microsoft Paint.

I sent Pit Stastny an email. He will get back to us shortly.

Great please let me know as soon as possible if he can do the art. If not I will talk to my guy.

Email received = I´ll participate
with at least Ice rink painting, or else
do you have some ideas how it should look?

Well ice is nice but we also need a tournament logo and a Mascot.

Senior logo is ready :

prntscr.com/86ui23

Cool. Before you do the mascot I want a vote of what we should do. I am thinking a Bald Eagle but what do you guys think?