I was worried that I would have a hard time following the World Cup action and hockey in general while down here in San Fran. The San Jose Mercury news actually has almost a whole page of hockey coverage (It's about 1/2 page more than I expected).

Well, apparently ESPN and ESPN2 will actually be showing a LOT of World Cup games.

Monday, Aug 30th 10am Czech Republic vs. Finland ESPN
Tuesday, Aug 31st 10am Germany vs. Sweden ESPN
Tuesday, Aug 31st 4pm U.S. vs. Canada ESPN2
Wednesday, Sept 1st 12:30am U.S. vs. Canada (repeat) ESPN2
Wednesday, Sept 1st 10am Czech Republic vs. Sweden ESPN
Wednesday, Sept 1st 4pm Canada vs. Slovakia ESPN2
Thursday, Sept 2nd 10:30am Finland vs. Germany ESPN2
Thursday, Sept 2nd 4pm U.S. vs. Russia ESPN2
Friday, Sept 3rd 12mid U.S. vs. Russia (repeat) ESPN2
Friday, Sept 3rd 10am Germany vs. Czech Republic ESPN
Friday, Sept 3rd 4pm U.S. vs. Slovakia ESPN2
Friday, Sept 3rd 11:30pm U.S. vs. Slovakia (repeat) ESPN2

Wow, ESPN is actually showing non-US games? Consider me, well, shocked!

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An interesting substitution for the Czechs in Petr Briza replacing Martin Prusek. Dusan Salficky was supposed to replace Prusek, but his Russian club team from Cherepovets wouldn't let him go!

Briza has been a star in the Czech and German Leagues for many years, and he was the Czech's World Championships starter back in the early 90's. He's 39 years old, and a very interesting choice to take as one of the 3 goalies.

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It's too bad I missed the Canada/Slovakia exhbition on Canadian TV yesterday; a 2-2 tie.
Rasto Stana stood out, and some speculate that he may have stolen the #1 job from Lasak.
I surely hope not, since Lasak is the type of goalie that can continually steal games, while Stana is not. The biggest hope for Stana is that he seems to be a bit more adept at the North American angles and flow than Lasak is.

Slovakia has had a bit of bad luck as the tournament begins... Palffy is out, Handzus is out, and Majesky is now out.
Rastislav Pavlikovsky will replace Handzus, which is a serious downgrade, while Ladislav Cierny will replace Majesky.

On one hand, Cierny is a better defender than Majesky. On the other hand, Cierny has no experience with the North American game, and I wonder how he will handle it. If there was one aspect that Majesky excelled at, it was clearing the crease. Slovakia can ill afford any more injuries.