Subject: Senior Canada National Team

Lenoir of National has signed up for U20. Everyone vote for him!

I'll stay in the senior race.

Have added Joshua Hogg (Royal City Redshift) and Pat Boudreault (Kenora Thistles) and dropped Benny Cassidy (tomatos) from our roster. This fixes the problem of having too many LWs and not enough RWs for the 'B' squad.

Be honest, you just wanted someone nicknamed "Boss Hogg" on the team...

"Butch" Cassidy just didn't do it for me.

I'll assume we don't have enough interested from our higher league GMs to make a WC host bid? I've seen some discussion about it in the past, but not for a while.

As well, I'd like to again note that I'm more than happy to accept any requests for assistant manager of the national team by Canadian GMs who might be interested in running for teams in the future who have no experience in NTs. It's a good thing to have on your resume!

Go Canada Go!

It's nearing WC season again! Not sure what to think about our pool yet. Germany is a tough opponent and Slovakia is Slovakia. Not sure what to make of the Spanish squad, though. I think they're beatable, but they're probably not pushovers. At the very least, another 3-0 first round is almost impossible. Hoping we can upset the Germans and get another 3 points from Spain.

On the bright side, our blue line has developed well this season and is good amount better than it was last year. Hopefully that gives us an edge, considering Germany and Spain both appear to have an older core than us.

Meanwhile, the B-squad is starting to get up there in age, so it's probably almost time to restock there. There's definitely at least three or four guys that probably should be replaced: Hiller, Setterington, Hayles and Underwood. Underwood is probably going to end up on the sub squad for the WC, but that's almost entirely because of his U position. There's some decent players I've scouted that I'd like to add: Stan Duxbury from Le Royal, Gene Deschamps from Too Legit, Mason McCarthy from Kenora Thistles and Johnathan Stevenson from Czech DII team Winter Hawks. Think it's also about time to drop the aging Grebe, though whether he gets replaced by Cole Moreau, whom I dropped for our future #1 Facey way back at the beginning of season 23 or another skater. If you all vote for me again next season, these questions will be answered!

Once again we start with a win over Germany, 2-1 this time. The refs did all they could to ruin the day, calling 12 minutes of penalties against us over the first 15 minutes, including an early 2-man disadvantage in the first 5 minutes, but our penalty killing lead by the foursome of Cyr, Devaney, Lepage and Spider was perfect tonight. Cyr picked up the game winner on a shorthanded goal early in the 3rd while Craig stopped 41 of 42 stops for first star and the win, only being beaten by a shot that deflected in off defenseman Mark Welch.

Slovakia is next tomorrow. Not expecting much, as we'll be resting some players for what could be a major showdown with Spain on Monday.

An expected 3-1 loss to Slovakia is the result for game 2. We scored in the first 5 minutes on a powerplay for a 1-0 lead on Cockburn's first goal of the tournament, but could never build on that momentum, getting doubled in shots 44-22. Home was solid, but there was not much more he could do. The PP is 1-for-7 with today's goal and the PK is now 10 for 12.

Will take on Spain tomorrow. With their 3-1 loss to Germany today, a point guarantees us another appearance in the 2nd round and at least one more season in the top division. We should have an advantage on energy to go along with our skill advantage, having played 3 periods each on VH and L while giving our key players some valuable rest against Slovakia, while Spain has played VH in all 6 of their periods. Hopefully we can get a good lead in the first and rest them more.

Squeeked out a 1-0 win over Spain on Carter Goldsmith's goal. Rowan Craig picks up the 18-save shutout. Expected better, but I did forget to set the line percentages, so that might have mitigated the beatdown.

So we go into the 2nd round again, our first back-to-back trip in the top division since seasons 8 and 9. We go in with the 3 points from our win against Germany to seed us 4th due to our -1 goal differential. We'll face Finland, Belarus and France. Finland will be difficult, but I think we can handle the other two. With that in mind, we'll give Home the game tomorrow and maybe give a couple other players the day off as well, though we will still go hard for a win. At this point, I definitely expect we'll exceed the 7th place finish from last season. Anything less would be a disappointment.

A 4-2 loss against Finland temporary places us 5th in our pool. We managed to keep it close through 2 periods after Maher scored another early goal and Home stopped 28 of the first 29 shots he faced, but we fell apart in the 3rd. Addison managed to score a late one to bump our goal differential up to -3.

Both of are games are now probably must-wins unless we get a lot of help. I'm pretty confident we can pull it off, however. At minimum, we've guaranteed ourselves another spot in the top pool next year regardless, even though we got stuck with one of the toughest round-robin pools. As I said yesterday, though, anything below a 6th place finish will be a disappointment.

Belarus tomorrow. They managed a point out of Slovakia which is a bit sobering. Hopefully that just keeps the guys from taking anything for granted.

A big 4-3 shootout win today again Belarus after blowing a 3-0 lead. The first line awoke, picking up all 3 goals (2 from Luc Hickey, the other from Jakob Lapage) while the second line struggled, being on for 2 of the 3 goals against. Steve Cochran scored on the first penalty shot and Rowan Craig stopped all 3 shots he faced, to go along with 26 of 29 in regular play. Winning in the shootout was not ideal, as now we need to beat France in regulation by at least 2 goals, or some help from Germany if we manage to beat them in overtime. A blowout win with some help from Finland could still net us 2nd place, however.

France is an all-in game for sure, as any type of loss spells the end of the tournament for us. There's not much else to say about it.

Great job!

You have my support again for next year!

Tough 2-1 OT loss to France today. In the end, it really didn't matter with Belarus defeating Germany in regulation, but it still stings, especially since they knocked us out last year as well. Philippe Spider picked up our only goal, a powerplay marker in the first, but we couldn't hold the lead again.

Still, in the weeks to come, looking back, I'm sure the last two years I've been running this team will be seen as either a major transition point if we continue to perform well in the WC or as a high point if we don't. I definitely hope you all give me a chance to make it the former in year 3!

I'm behind you all the way!