International Midweek Musings

"Leaving...on a jet plane..."



With GB heading off to Poland now for the pre-qualification for the Olympic qualifiers (well, no-one ever claimed we were a hockey nation) this Midweek Musings will completely ignore domestic hockey in favour of a quick guide to this weeks International action...



Firstly...where in the hell is Sanok?: It's a small town (38,000 or so inhabitants) in south-eastern Poland, down by the border with Hungary. And here is the arena. Whitley Bay on a bad day, anyone? Local attractions include the San River, Poland's largest bus company (Autosan) and a castello. So, a thriving metropolis, and the ideal place to hold an international ice-hockey tournament...no, really.


Who are the opponents?: Hockey superpowers all! GB will face Romania, Japan, who are mostly famous in ice-hockey for this moment....and Poland, the host nation. Who, by the way, have a commentator's nightmare of a roster. Let's look at the teams individually, shall we?



Romania: I can actually proudly boast of having seen the Romanians play in Britain, thanks to them facing the Coventry Blaze way back in the mists of time and drawing two-all at the Skydome. Their roster has changed a little since then, but their talisman, Jozsef Adorjan, is still playing for them at the age of 33, along with the even older Attila Borsos (35) and 36-year-old Levente Elekes. In Arpad Mihaly they have a geniunely dangerous power-forward who has spent time in the AHL and ECHL during his career (proper time, scoring 26 goals in 05/06, not just one game), and was top-scorer for Bolzano last season. Certainly they could trip GB up and should not be ignored...

Japan: Arguably the best team in the group, the Japanese players, with one exception (LA Kings goalie Yutaka Fukufuji) play domestically, and are probably the favourites to go through. If I were honest I'd tell you I have absolutely no idea who the star players are, apart from the obvious Fukufuji. However, GB have beaten Japan in the past, so this game is winnable...

Poland: And so, the host nation. And yes, these are real names, I haven't just leaned on my keyboard.
Starting at the back, the Poles have a giant in goal in the 6'4 Przemyslaw Odrobny, the 6'2 Adam Borzecki in front of him and 6'3, 212lb Tomasz Proszkiewicz pounding up the middle. This, then, is not a team built from speedsters. Apart from Borzecki they all play domestically. They also have the oldest player in the group in 37-year-old Sebastian Gonera, who is a year older than Polish national hockey hero Mariusz Czerkawski (you may know his name if you've seen any NHL in the past few years), who appears as the somewhat vaguely-defined "team leader". Their coach, however, is a Swede (and ex-Cardiff Devil) Peter Ekroth. This is the game GB need to win if they want to have any hope of progressing.

What about our boys?: It's the usual suspects in the GB team, although Rob Dowd is rewarded for a scorching start to the Elite League season by being included in the squad for the first time as the only "new" player in the squad-many of the others have been seen in a GB shirt before. Stevie Lyle and Stephen Murphy fight it out for the goalie spot, while Greg Owen returns from his French adventure to centre one of the lines. He is also the only member of the squad not to come from the Elite League this season...

Can GB qualify?: Yes. But they have to, in my opinion, win all three games. Do anything else and that group is so evenly matched that any one of the four combatants can go through.

Where can I find out what's going on?: BBC Coventry have live coverage of all three games on the Internet. All you need is to go to the Coventry and Warwickshire section of the BBC site.

That's all you need to know...apart from the first game (v Poland) is 6:30 tomorrow night.

Go on, Great Britain...