Assunto: US National Team

Yesterday's game against Russia was a great one for our boys. They managed to pull out the W against a much stronger team, which is always promising when you start thinking about the upcoming qualifier games. Our powerplay was great, scoring twice on 5 opportunities. Our penalty kill was just as important, shutting Russia down on 6 opportunities. Wayne Little had a monster game, netting himself a hat trick and 2 assists to boot.

In other news, the deadline for jersey submissions is today. Don't forget to submit your entry!

The deadline for submissions for a new US National Team hockey jersey passed on 5/18. We would like to thank all the entrants for their time and effort. We were hoping the competition would generate more interest, but the 3 submissions we received were all very good. We have instead decided to go in a different direction.

The jersey that we will be using is essentially a modern version of the Miracle on Ice jerseys to celebrate one of the most important victories in US hockey history. We again thank all the entrants for their submissions and have sent them credits to thank them for their time. If they are not there now, they should be arriving soon.

Our boys had a close loss on Saturday. There are only 3 games left for friendlies before the games start counting. We'll be running the players most likely to play in the WCH games now, so you should expect to see an increase in ratings for each of the positions.

If you have players on the team, running your camps now would be a big benefit in the tournament! Thanks to everyone who has run camps so far as well.

That was a disappointing loss to Belgium yesterday. Even beating them on tactics and having a higher team strength we still lost 2-1. Our entire roster was in the 80s for chemistry though, so over the next couple of games they should pick up a bit and get back into the swing of things.

Bids to host the World Championship tournaments have been posted. Don't forget to vote! We have submitted bids to host the senior division I tournament and the U18 division I tournament.

Lastly, if you have players on national teams, please try to run your camps ASAP! The sooner you run them, the better the players are for the tournaments.

Running camp this week, but only Kevin Clinton is going. Everyone else is available for selection. (They're too old for camp to have a significant impact on them. Time for the young guys to develop.)

Thanks for the heads up. I'd probably do the same thing if I were you.

We had a close loss to Russia yesterday, 2-1. Our backup goalie Chad Davidson turned in a stellar performance, capturing the second star despite being on the losing side. We have one friendly game left and most of our players should be up to full chemistry again by the end of that.

In other news, we won the bid to host the Division I World Championship tournament. This is the first time the US has had the honor of hosting the senior Division I tournament.

In case you missed it, today was the first preliminary game for the WCH tournament. For the first time ever, our boys got to play the tournament stateside and they went on to win 3-2 in the shootout. If you have some time, the replay is a good one. Portugal beat us on tactics and we still pulled out the overtime win. We were outshot 25-40, but we dominated faceoffs, winning them 47-19.

From the first set of games, we appear to be in the tougher of the 2 groups. All 3 games in our group were decided in the shootout. Meanwhile in group 2, UK and Romania took home easy victories as the managers of Slovenia and Ukraine failed to get their teams ready for the tournament matches. We'll be playing Italy tomorrow. While not as far ahead of us as Portugal was, they will still present a challenge.

Good job man. I don't have any players in the NT but Im glad someones doing a heck of a job internationally.

We're still the underdogs (as usual). Portugal has the strongest team of the group and Croatia is the most dangerous one .

Bosnia is the weakest one and we can't afford to lose points on them.

With that said, I think the key matches are going to be against Italy and Canada. they are stronger but we can certainly beat them in a good day. If we win one of those, without overtime, we should qualify (assuming we beat bosnia without overtime)

Croatia is not as good as used to be, IMO but still very dangerous, asides the fact they are stronger than us.

I appreciate the sentiment. Unfortunately, it may have been a bit premature. Hopefully today was just a minor stumble.

We lost a VERY close one with Italy today. We tied it up in the third period only to have Italy take the lead a few minutes later. We couldn't recover after, even with 2 excellent chances after pulling Clinton. The Italian netminders were very strong.

As Bulls mentioned, we are again the underdogs this season. Tomorrow we play a strong Canadian team, and we need the win to help keep us afloat to make the tournament.

we won !!!! by 2 goals

Portugal beat Croatia by 2 as well

And Bosnia shocked the world again beating Italy on overtime

Now we are ahead of Canada and Croatia and Italy!!!!

now we are in great shape. we probably would qualify even if we lose all matches.

Today's loss was very disappointing. A win against Bosnia and Herzegovina tomorrow should qualify us for the playoffs, but the 4-0 drubbing today won't help our goal differential. On the bright side, the other tactic we were considering was Normal, so theoretically it could have been worse.

We're still in the running and we have our fate in our own hands, though. B&H is the only team in our group with lower team strength than us, so a win is not unthinkable.

When i get the NT game reports it doesn't mean much to me aside from a win or a loss since I don't have time to keep up with Hockey that well (and im worse on soccer with about 30 seconds a day) but with these little fill ins you guys do in the forums it actually makes it meaningful for me.

And I just wanted to say thanks.

That was perhaps the most difficult match to come up with the best strategy and we failed

I think it is ok as we were not the ones supposed to win anyways. What hurts is that we shot almost the same and didnt score and they scored 4 on us.

goal differential can be a big factor.