Kings In The 2008 World Championships Part III

USA vs. Canada

Canada wins this game 5-4 against the USA. Canadian goals were scored by Brent Burns, Dany Heatley for two, Jonathan Towes, and Derek Roy. For the USA it was Patrick O'Sullivan, Dustin Brown, Zach Parise, and Jason Pominville.

Side note: Pierre McGuire mentioned he spoke to Parise the other day about losing his front teeth during the playoffs. Apparently Parise's learning how to talk without spitting. Cute.

Sully's goal was a nice break across the blue line with the pass from Drew Stafford. After that, it's just him and Cam Ward and the puck hits the mesh for the second US goal in the game. Sully actually shows some emotion on this goal and cheers!

Patty O making a showing!

On a rush by the US, Gord Miller totally calls them the Latvians. Good job.

Brownie's goal in the 3rd period was pretty much perfect. During a power play it was Brownie, Sully, and Parise on a line. Sully passed to Parise who passed to Brownie who was on the doorstep.

Tip: Keep your head up around Brownie or you might get smashed.

I've noticed the music selection of the Canadians at this rink in Halifax is... interesting. They don't play the traditional American music between plays and before the periods begin. No rock, no electronic music. So far I've heard folk, Irish rock (which is awesome), and I just heard "Thriller" by the King of Pop. I'm not sure how well that'd fly at Staples. I'd wonder who took over the music selection. Oh wait, "Start Me Up"... I guess that's not too bad... oh wait, there's "Eye of the Tiger."

It was a pretty exciting end in that Heatley scored with 45 seconds left in the game, which made it 5-4 Canada. I was happy to see that on the ending rush for the Americans, Brownie was out there helping to get the puck to the net. I guess that's expected seeing as how he's on the top line with Sully on the 2nd line.

Sully ends this game with 1 goal, 1 assist, 3 shots on net, at a+3, and with 12:16 of ice time. Brownie gets 1 goal, 1 assist, 4 shots on net, 2 penalty minutes (roughing at the end of the game), even in the plus/minus column, and got 18:30 of ice time.

Latvia Demotes Slovenia

Latvia (Raitis Ivanans) sends Slovenia (Anze Kopitar) to the relegation round where they'll be in a lower group next year. Latvia won 3-0 leaving Kopi with no points in this game. Even though Slovenia had 3 goals against them, Kopi was even for his plus/minus meaning he wasn't on the ice for any of Latvia's goals. This was similar in the USA vs. Slovenia game where Kopi wasn't on the ice for ALL 5 of the US goals. For this game he ends with 2 penalty minutes, 3 shots on net, and 26:49 of ice time. His ice time was 5 more minutes than any of his other teammates, and, after looking at the rest of the roster, it looks like Slovenia shortened its bench pretty severely. Wow.

Ivanans only gets on the stats sheet with 2 penalty minutes and only 3:44 of ice time. I guess this makes sense since Slovenia appeared to be attacking for much of the game since their shots on net more than doubled Latvia's shots (36: 17). So Latvia moves on with a win in this game. I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen with both teams at this point. I'll do some research on that...