Tag Archives: IIHF

Flyers’ Pierre Edouard Bellemare scores by passing on award at IIHF tournament

09 Tuesday May 2017

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The phrase “consummate team player” is an often over-used piece of sports-writing jargon, but every now and then you see the meaning behind the words.

Philadelphia Flyers LW Pierre Edouard Bellemare

Case in point: Philadelphia Flyers left wing  Pierre Edouard Bellemare. A native of France, Bellemare is basking in Paris co-hosting the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship with Cologne, Germany.

Bellemare is a fourth-line player in the National Hockey League but he a top line forward for France.

After France upset Finland 5-1 in Paris Sunday, officials decided to name Bellemare the best player of the game for the French team.

Bellemare, who had a goal in the game, disagreed.

He passed on the honor and persuaded officials to give it French goaltender Florian Hardy, to the delight of the 11,433 spectators inside Paris’ AccorHotels Arena. Hardy had 42 saves in the game.

France, ranked 14th in the world, had previously lost eight straight to the 3rd-ranked Finns, dating back to 1993.

Sunday’s win was the latest in what’s been an excellent 2016-17 hockey season for Bellemare that began with his standout play as the only French skater on Team Europe in the World Cup of Hockey.

The Flyers failed to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but the team rewarded the 32-year-old Bellemare for his play during the National Hockey League season by re-signing him to a two-year deal at $1.45 million per year.

The team also made him an assistant captain, an honor he shares with high-scoring right wing Wayne Simmonds.

And Sunday’s gesture in Paris shows why.

She’s got Seoul: Toronto’s Danelle Im scores for South Korea’s women’s hockey team

04 Tuesday Apr 2017

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Danelle Im first thought it was one of those Internet scams, you know, like when the prince from some faraway land sends you a too-good-to-be-true email promising to share his vast stolen fortune if you help him recover it by supplying your bank card or social security numbers.

Danelle Im (Photo/Alex D’Addese).

When Im, a Toronto native, got a message in 2012 inquiring whether she’d be interested in playing hockey for South Korea in the 2018 Winter Olympics, she was a tad skeptical.

Lucky for the 2018 Winter Games host country,  Im did her homework and the former Ryerson University forward joined South Korea’s women’s national team.

She scored a goal Sunday, helping to power South Korea to a 5-1 win over Slovenia in the International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s World Championship Division II Group A tournament in South Korea.

“Being handed this opportunity – it’s literally been given to me – is extremely humbling,” Im told Ryerson’s Eyeopener in February. “That’s why I want to put up my best effort. This is a gift.”

Her tally was an even-strength goal that came in the third period and extended South Korea’s lead to 4-1.

Im, who recently  finished her first and only season at Toronto’s Ryerson, was one of several hockey players with Korean-sounding last names and living in North America who received invites to help the Asian nation quickly build Olympic-level women’s and men’s ice hockey from teams almost from scratch.

South Korea’s method for filling its Olympic hockey roster isn’t unusual. For example, Jamaica is scouring the United States and Canada for hockey talent of island heritage in hopes of fielding an Olympic ice hockey team in the near future.

Togo, a West African nation, used Facebook to recruit a Togolese-born skier who was raised in the French Alps to be a member of its two-person team for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

And Dominica’s cross country ski team at the 2014 Winter Games was a couple who hailed from Staten Island, New York, not the Caribbean island nation.

Former Ryerson University forward Danelle Im played 20 games for the Rams in 2016-17 (Photo/Alex D’Addese/Ryerson Rams Athletics).

South Korea isn’t known for hockey – its women’s and men’s teams are both ranked 23rd in the world by the IIHF. The country has only 2,591 players, 259 of them women, according to the IIHF

But because PyeongChang, South Korea, is the site of the 2018 Winter Games, the country gets to field men’s and women’s teams to go up against more established hockey powers from North America and Europe.

From Toronto to PyeongChang. Former Ryerson University hockey player Danelle Im is looking forward to facing the world’s best at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea (Photo/Alex D’Addese/ Ryerson Rams Athletics)

So when South Korea put out an all-call to help boost its program pronto, Im was only too happy to sign on  – once she learned that the offer was legit.

“I never dreamed this would happen,” Im, who was born in Toronto to Korean parents, told The New York Times in February.

Im’s goal Sunday matched her output for Ryerson in 2016-17. She had a goal and 3 assists in 20 games for the Rams.

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey.

 

 

Lights out for the shootout in championship games?

07 Saturday Jan 2017

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There’s still an afterglow on this side of the border following the United States’ dramatic 5-4 comeback win over Canada in one of the greatest International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship gold medal games ever played.

But there’s still also a bitter taste – even among some Team USA  fans – that such a thrilling, entertaining, dramatic, and excellently-played championship game was decided by a five-round shootout after an overtime session.

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From 1980 U.S. hockey Miracle on Ice Gold Medal Olympian Mike Eruzione to newly-forged hockey fan Tony X  deciding a championship game with a duel between a shooter and a goaltender was about as satisfying as the final episodes of “The Sopranos,” HBO’s “The Night Of,” or the Bobby Ewing dream sequence on “Dallas” in the 1980s.

Of course, some folks say that complaints about Thursday night’s shootout are merely sour grapes from fans who didn’t like the outcome of the game.

I have mixed feelings about shootouts. I don’t think any championship in any sport should be decided by any sort of shootout.

Can you imagine the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Caveliers deciding an NBA championship series on free throw or three-point shootouts?  Or a deadlocked Super Bowl being settled by a field goal kickers duel from 50-yards out?  Or a tied World Series baseball game being won or loss in a home run derby after the traditional nine innings?

Still, I understand the excitement that hockey shootouts can produce. I was at the U.S.-Russia game at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi when Washington Capitals forward T.J. Oshie scored four shootout goals in an unbelievable, pressure-filled exhibition of skill.

The National Hockey League started using the shootout for regular season games in the 2005-06. But the league doesn’t use it for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The IIHF has used the shootout to decide deadlocked world championship and Olympic games since 1992.

What do you think? Should the shootout stay or go in championship games?

 

 

Jordan Greenway continues to impress at IIHF World Junior Championship

01 Sunday Jan 2017

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Team USA's Jordan Greenway

Team USA’s Jordan Greenway

If the U.S. team at the International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship was a 1960s pop music group, it would probably be called Jordan and the Americans (Okay, I had to get some kind of Jay and the Americans reference in there before the end of the year).

Boston University forward Jordan Greenway continued his impressive play for Team USA at the tournament Saturday, by notching a goal and an assist and by generally wrecking havoc on Team Canada in the U.S.’s 3-1 victory at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre.

Greenway, a 2015 Minnesota Wild second round draft pick, made his 6-foot-5, 230-pound presence felt at both ends of the ice and made life miserable for Team Canada’s goaltender with numerous close-range stuff-in attempts.

His play Saturday caught the attention of analysts on the NHL Network and several folks on social media.

More from Chris Peters’ The United States of Hockey blog:  The way Greenway has developed over the last two years should give a lot of hope to Minnesota Wild fans. He played like the power forward he was brought onto this team to be, using his frame to get pucks to the net and make some plays. The move he made to score Team USA’s second goal showed his combination of power and finesse. You need guys like that to impose their will on a game and I thought we saw that more today from Greenway than any other time in the tournament.

Mexico, king of the hockey world! – at least one division of it anyway

29 Friday Jan 2016

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Congratulations to Mexico for winning the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Under-20 Division III world championship this week at a tournament played in Mexico City.

Mexico crushed South Africa 9-2 to capture the crown in a round-robin tournament that featured teams from Israel, Turkey, Bulgaria and New Zealand.

The victory moves Mexico – currently ranked 32nd in the world by the IIHF -up the ladder to Division II competition. Mexico has a population of 121,736,809 that includes 2,020 hockey players – 243 men, 1,427 juniors, and 350 women, according to IIHF figures.

Winning on the international stage is becoming a habit for Mexico. The Under-20 men’s squad took home the Gold Medal in 2005 and 2011 – when both tournaments were played on Mexican soil. In 2014, Mexico’s women’s national team finished first in a IIHF Division II B qualification tournament.