World Championship Round-Up, Week 1

We’re just about at the one-week mark at the annual IIHF World Hockey Championships in Minsk, Belarus. There are many, many Flames properties at the tournament, so in the interest of answering your “How are they doing” questions, here’s a quick rundown of their tournaments thus far.

Backlund was player of the game for his team against Denmark and serves as an alternate captain.

Sweden’s won all four of their games thus far (one of ’em in extra time). They sit in first place in their group, just ahead of Canada.

Sven broke a rib (or some ribs) in his first game and had to go home.

With no Sven, Switzerland has been…not great. They’ve lost three of their four games and aren’t expected to repeat their medal performance from last year.

Don’t get your hopes up, but Gaudreau has been one of Team USA’s best players. Even when the team got lit up by the Russians, Johnny Hockey had a decent game.

Team USA has won twice and lost twice, and sits in fourth place. However, if Finland beats Belarus (using up both teams games-in-hand), they’d push the USA into fifth place and out of a quarterfinals berth. In other words – stop messing around, America. (Update: this did happen.)

Hudler hasn’t been the best Czech player, but he’s been quietly productive. In four games, the Czechs have a regulation win, an OT win, a regulation loss and an OT loss. They’re in third place in Group A.

Monahan’s the 13th forward for Team Canada. He’s barely played, but he hasn’t played poorly. Canada’s won three of four, losing one game in OT to the French. They’re in second place in Group A.