August hockey heats up

Although I'm away from the Czech Republic for the month of August, the world of hockey continues on. Perhaps the most significant thing I've missed in my absence is the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament. In 2011, I attended every game played in Břeclav, covering it for Czech Hockey Report as well as Eurohockey.com.

In 2012, Eurohockey was on hand again, with Jon Rowson, Henrik Lundqvist (not the goalie) and Romon Solovyev doing a good job of providing coverage. For those who missed it, Canada won the tournament for the fifth straight year, defeating Finland 4-0 in the final. The Czech Republic, who feared a lack of offense heading in, made it to the semifinal where they fell 2-1 to Sweden on a late goal.

However, the Ivan Hlinka was not the only hockey event going on in Moravia this weekend. The Women's Summer Camp finished up in Brumov-Bylnice, with Tyler Bilton providing coverage. Slavia Praha was the Czech representative at the seven-team event, finishing second by taking 13 of a possible 18 points. Slavia's only regulation loss was to Russian club HC Tornado, who blew away everybody they faced, outscoring their opponents 32-1 over the course of the tournament.

Kverka takes the opening faceoff vs Norway. mhl.khl.ru

While two international tournaments finished on Saturday, another began. For the second straight year, HC Karlovy Vary is representing the Czech Republic at the World Junior Club Cup in Omsk, Russia. They finished second place last year and are off to a good start in 2012, beating the Norway U20 national team 3-1 in the opening game. KV got two first period goals from Tomáš Harkabus and another in the first minute of the second from captain Jaromír Kverka, while Vladislav Habal stopped 19 of 20 Norwegian shots.

"Today it was a very important game that we did not want to lose, we wanted to gain confidence, which we finally did," Kverka told the MHL website. "Norway played aggressive hockey and at the beginning we had problems, but then we started playing smarter and we won."

Things should only get more difficult from this point. After playing the United States Hockey League's Waterloo Black Hawks on Sunday (16:00 MSK, 14:00 CET, 7am CT), they play two MHL teams: the host Omsk Hawks (Tuesday) and Dinamo-Shinnik Bobrusk (Wednesday). Karlovy Vary will be a member of this league too in the upcoming season.

Tournament semifinals will be played Saturday and the final on Sunday.

Red Army beats KV to win WJCC

Krasnaya Armiya Moscow, the junior club of CSKA, won the first ever World Junior Club Championship on Saturday in Omsk, Russia. They defeated Energie Karlovy Vary 7-2 in the final game before a sell-out crowd of 9,500. 

The opening faceoff of the final game before a full house in Omsk.
Photo: Jiří Ryžuka, hokejkv.cz.

After surrendering only 1 goal in its first three games, KV was shelled for 3 in the first period and trailed 5-0 by the time the game was 25 minutes old. In a fairly balanced attack, the Russian club was led by 2 goals and 1 assist from Mikhail Plotnikov, who was the player of the game.

"This was the first time in my life I've seen so many people in the stands. It's an incredible feeling. Such adrenaline. I had never experienced such feelings. When you score, it's just an explosion of emotions!" About the game, he said, "We knew nothing about the Czechs. We had never even seen them, at the hotel or on the ice. And we could have scored more than seven goals. It's too bad that I couldn't complete the hat-trick."

At the team's website, Karlovy Vary's Jiří Ryžuka speculated that their opponent "is maybe the strongest junior club in Europe. It would certainly be an interesting confrontation to see them play the winners of the North American Memorial Cup, the St. John's Sea Dogs."

Indeed, that's the kind of match-up that was hoped for when the tournament was organized. But the calibre of the North American teams sent to compete was a disappointment. The Canadian representative came from the Alberta Junior Hockey League, which is on the second tier of Canadian junior hockey, and the American representative was an all-star team created from the third-tier Eastern Junior Hockey League.

Defending champions of the MHL, the Red Army team were the favourites to win, but they started slowly. They beat Tatranskí Vlci, the junior club of the KHL's Lev Poprad, 4-3 in their first game and then were shut out 2-0 by HK Riga. In their last game of the group stage, they faced a must-win game against the EJHL Selects and blew them out 9-1.

Karlovy Vary entered the final as the only unbeaten team in the tournament. They were a perfect 3-0 in the group stage, surrendering only 1 goal in the process. Goaltender Vladislav Habal posted a pair of shutouts against Mälmo and Shinnik, 4-0 and 1-0, before Fort McMurray managed a goal against back-up Denis Rauscher in the third game, which finished 4-1.

Despite making the finals, no player from Karlovy Vary recorded more than 3 points. Jaromír Kverka scored 3 goals, including 1 in the final game. Martin Funk scored Energie's other goal in the final game.

Two players from Riga finished atop tournament scoring with 8 points in three games. Miks Indrašis recorded 5 goals and 3 assists, while linemate Robert Bukarts scored 4 goals and 4 assists. Also recording 8 points was  Also from Riga, Kristers Gudlevskis was named the tournament's top goaltender. The best defenceman and forwards were both from CSKA: Andrei Sergeev and Roman Lyubimov.

Karlovy Vary's junior squad begins its Junior Extraliga schedule on September 8 at home to Mladá Boleslav.