Subject: Senior Canada National Team

Thanks. We have been waiting a long time to win a game against Poland.

After two big wins, we rested the first line and our best goalie. An overtime win/loss would have been nice, but I think the extra rest may be a bigger plus in the coming games.

We start the qualifying round today in first place in group two which includes:
Poland......2
France......3
Slovakia....6
Croatia.....7
Canada.....10
Hungary....16
(Number beside is current world ranking)
We will play Slovenia today, with the other two games against France and Hungary over the next two days.
Top four teams will advance to the quarter finals.

Your odds are looking really good! 1 win should be enough to keep you in the top 4 and then you will be able to rest some players.

I am jealous

I'm hoping that win will come today for exactly that reason. The research seems to be paying off.

Slovenia......3
Canada........1

Missed the boat on tactics.
Had two choices.
Went with the one he plays most at home.
Wrong!
Hope I choose better for Hungary tomorrow.

A 3-1 win over Hungary today should put us into the final eight. Seeing how many top teams may not make it into the quarter finals, makes us hopeful to move up in the world standings by tournament's end. We shall see.
World number one, France, tomorrow.
Both junior teams had wins today as well.
Congratulations!!

Yes, overall a good day for Canada.

Us in U18 are still playing our life on the line in this next game.

This senior's team has had great success so far! Well done.

A 2-0 loss to France today. Our top line had the day off again. Used our number three goalie who managed to gain third star rating in spite of the loss. No periods played on VH. Tomorrow comes the big test against Russia. A win there would put us into the final four.

Congrats to both junior teams who won today.

Canada ......2
Russia.......3
Russia won it in the 5th round of the shootout.
Despite being outshot 40-19, Van Wyk (the third star) held us in the game against a much superior opponent.
A comparison of the line strengths shows we played an excellent game, just not good enough to win.
Tactics were right on the money.
Russia has won the gold in two of the last three years.
This is the best prepared team we have sent in recent years. Next season's team will be at least as well prepared. Thank you all for your support in training.

Congrats to the two junior teams who both won today.
U20 moves back into division one, and the U18 team is in the semi-finals. Good luck to them in their effort to repeat/improve on last years success.

The results are in!

Gold.......France
Silver.....Finland
Bronze.....Russia
4th........Hungary
5th........Canada

By virtue of our fifth place finish, our overall world ranking for the seniors moves up to 6th from 10th.
Thanks to all the managers who have made this possible through their training efforts.
We shall make efforts to improve it further next season.
Work has already begun!

Thanks to a focus last season on chemistry, we are in great shape again going into the world cup.
Only the newbies have less than 85% team chemistry, and all starters are over 90%.
This means we can play most friendlies at VL and rest our starters more. We will need it! This season's group could be a tough one and includes:

Team…..world ranking…..finished last season
Belarus……….3……………7
Canada….…….6……………5
Hungary…….11………….4
Turkey…………15………….6

Each team plays the others once,....lowest team is out.
The second round will likely be against division 3:

Russia………..….2………..3
Latvia…………...7……….13
Switzerland.10………..9
Serbia………...16……….17

Tough competition!!
The numbers below show how many hockey teams there are in each country.

Rnk Country # Teams
1 Czech Republic  1415
2 Slovakia  1032
3 Germany  302
4 Poland  294
5 Latvia  269
6 Hungary  267
7 Russia  258
8 Finland  214
9 France  210
10 Sweden  163
11 Canada  126
12 Switzerland  121
13 Romania  101
14 USA  97
15 Croatia  86

As you can see, there are seven countries that have at least twice as many teams as Canada. This gives them a substantial advantage in the number of good players coming out of their academies! Despite this opponent's advantage, the Canadian national senior and U18 teams have finished very near the top in world rankings. U20 seems to be gaining ground again. This is a testament to the hard work of their GMs, their assistants and other helpers, but most of all to this country's league managers and their everyday player training methods. Thank you all for your efforts.

As suggested, I offered the AGM position of the senior national team to domrochon. I have received no response to that email as yet. I see he has put his candidacy in again for GM of the senior team next season.
I assume this means he is not interested in being an AGM.
I know there must be some out there who might be interested, but may be a little wary because they feel a certain lack of confidence.
Fear not, I felt the same way at the outset too!
I doubt I know all the tricks yet, but I will do my best to show you the ones that I have found to be effective at the national level.
It is different than league management, because the competition is much tougher.
An understanding of spreadsheets would be a definite asset, as would pro pack.
The more game experience you have, the easier it will be to understand.
If you are interested, please send me an email, and we will try to get your education started.
Do not feel that language may be a barrier. "Google translate" is quite effective.
Canadian managers only, please.