Watch highlights from Canada’s 4-0 win over Finland in the Bronze medal game of the 2012 World Junior Championship.

Per IIHF:

It is a great day in Finnish hockey history. In the latest chapter of hockey’s classic Nordic rivalry, Finland demolished Sweden 6-1 in the gold medal game of the 2011 IIHF World Championship. Petteri Nokelainen scored the first of five third-period Finnish goals, and it stood up as the winner.

Sweden – Finland 1-6 (0-0, 1-1, 0-5) Game Sheet Photos

Tournament scoring leader Jarkko Immonen (9-3-12), Niko Kapanen, Janne Pesonen, Mika Pyörälä, and Antti Pihlström also tallied for Finland. Magnus Pääjärvi scored for Sweden.

“This is the highlight of my career,” said Finland’s Sami Lepistö. “Of course, the Olympic bronze last year was big, but this is the World Championship.”

In a duel of 2011′s top two goalies statistically, Finland’s Petri Vehanen got the best of tournament MVP Viktor Fasth as Sweden outshot the Finns 33-32.

The 16-year wait for Finnish fans is finally over. Finland’s one and only previous World Championship gold came in 1995 in Stockholm with a 4-1 final win over Sweden, as the Finnish fans celebrated to the strains of the bouncy tournament theme song, “Den Glider In.”

“It’s easy to say now, but I knew after the semifinal win [over Russia] that we’d win the gold,” said Tuomo Ruutu of Finland’s 2011 dream come true. “We didn’t change a thing. We kept on playing our own game.”

Jukka Jalonen got his first World Championship medal ever as head coach of the Finnish Lions, and it was the colour he was looking for.

“We had a great tournament,” said Jalonen. “It’s an honour to win gold. We won many one-goal games here. This says a lot about the character of the team.”

Pär Mårts, who coached Sweden to World U20 silver in 2008 and 2009, came away with second place again in his head coaching debut at the Worlds.

“The Finns were the better team,” Mårts admitted. “They played much better on defence and had more power. Nobody on the Swedish team played his best game. I’m proud that my team had a pretty good tournament. Not the best, but it’s a start for something better.”

This night, the attendance of 9,166 at Orange Arena was evenly split among Finnish and Swedish fans, and their competing chants of “Suomi!”and “Sverige!” created a great atmosphere.

The Finns, showing the mental toughness they’ve shown all tournament long, didn’t crumble under adversity in the biggest game of the year. They delivered the most emphatic big-game win ever for a squad sporting Suomi sweaters.

After a tense, scoreless first period, Sweden got the first goal at 7:20 of the second when Pääjärvi unleashed a lightning wrister from the left faceoff circle that beat Vehanen high on the glove side.

Nokelainen took a boarding call on Oliver Ekman-Larsson on the forecheck at 14:25, and Sweden went to the power play. The Swedes came close to grabbing a two-goal lead when Patrik Berglund tipped Pääjärvi’s slap-pass off the post.

Finnish wunderkind Mikael Granlund drew a penalty late in the middle frame as he tried to dipsy-doodle through David Petrasek, who hooked him. And with seven seconds left before the buzzer, the Finns tied it on Immonen’s tournament-leading ninth goal.

A prone Mikko Koivu kicked the puck back up the left boards to Janne Pesonen, who got it to Immonen, and he stepped in from the left point and hammered it high past Fasth’s glove.

It was a critical moment. The Finns had seized the momentum heading to the third. “If they didn’t get that goal, it’s a different game,” said a regretful Mattias Tedenby.

The Finns just kept rolling. At 2:35 of the final stanza, Nokelainen broke in over the Swedish blueline alongside Pihlström, who sent him a neat pass on the left side, and he roofed it impeccably past Fasth’s stick.

At 3:21, the Finns went up 3-1 when Kapanen grabbed a loose puck to Fasth’s left after a partially blocked centering pass from Juhamatti Aaltonen and banged it in.

Halfway through the third, the Swedes called a timeout to regroup. But they couldn’t solve Finland’s tenacious checking.

The Finns got a ton of late insurance goals. First, there was a marker from Pesonen with 3:41 left, as he raced in to collect a Granlund shoot-in off the end boards and put a backhand deke past Fasth to make it 4-1. Pyörälä completely doused hopes of a Swedish rally when he potted another one from the right faceoff circle just 35 seconds later.

“I don’t know what happened to the Swedes, but they didn’t have a chance, did they?” said Lepistö.

Pihlström put the icing on the cake with a beautiful high shot with 55 seconds left. 6-1. Good night, Sweden.

“I’m just really disappointed we didn’t come up with a better third period when it mattered the most,” said Swedish captain Rickard Wallin.

“They scored five goals in one period, and that’s not supposed to happen to us,” said Pääjärvi.

The Finnish celebration was on, not only in the arena, but from Helsinki to Rovaniemi. Accepting their gold medals from IIHF President René Fasel, the Finnish players saluted their fans, sang along lustily to their national anthem, and hoisted the trophy as if they couldn’t believe their time had finally come.

It is a refreshing pace of change for Finland, which had grown accustomed to heartbreaking losses to Sweden. Two recent examples include Sweden’s rallying from a 5-1 deficit to down Finland 6-5 in the 2003 World Championship quarter-finals in Helsinki, and Tre Kronor’s 3-2 victory in the 2006 Olympic gold medal game on Nicklas Lidström’s early third-period goal.

The Finns can now put behind them a sad legacy of losing in the finals under the IIHF’s playoff system (1992, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2007). They are the well-deserving champions of the world.

“This team is full of fantastic guys,” said Ruutu. “I felt that we were a tight group and we did everything together as a team, on the ice and off it.”

Sweden’s last medal came in 2010 with a bronze medal victory over the host Germans. Finland’s previous one also came at Sweden’s expense, a bronze in Canada 2008.

Interestingly, 2011 marks the first year that Finland’s national team has not included at least one member of the squad that won gold in Sweden in 1995.

The gold medal victory moves Finland up from fifth place to second in the IIHF World Ranking.

The two Nordic finalists are also the co-hosts of the IIHF World Championship in 2012 and 2013. Finland hopes to be defending its title when the next gold medal game is played in Helsinki on May 20, 2012.

 

Per NHL.com:

Team USA parlayed the most complete 13 minutes of hockey it has played in this Olympic tournament into a 60-minute date with destiny on Sunday.

The rabid Americans torched a usually reliable Finland team for a half-dozen goals by the time 12:46 had elapsed in the first period of Friday’s semifinal before cruising to an emphatic 6-1 victory against the shocked Finns.

Now a team few fancied to be among the last two standing in this battle of hockey heavyweights not only reaches the championship game, but does so while firing on all cylinders.

The Americans, who have yet to trail in this tournament after five games, will play Canada in Sunday’s gold-medal game. The host country hung on for a dramatic 3-2 win over Slovakia on Friday night.

“It’s pretty unbelievable,” American forward Zach Parise said. “It’s tough to describe right now. Even sitting on the bench and watching the clock count down to your chance to win a gold, it’s pretty surreal.”

Not as surreal as the first 13 minutes of Friday’s game, though.

Ryan Malone opened the scoring at the 2:04 mark when Finnish goalie Miikka Kiprusoff made a stunning gaffe in playing the puck. The Finnish goalie wandered out between the circles to chase down a dump-in before a hard-charging Phil Kessel reached it. But under pressure, Kiprusoff made the wrong read and pushed the puck right onto the stick of Malone just inside the blue line.

The Tampa Bay Lightning forward buried the shot and the Finns’ hopes of advancing to the gold-medal game for the second-straight Olympic tournament.

“It was a tough start for us,” Finland coach Jukka Jalonen said. “Kipper made one mistake and it shouldn’t be like this, but we were kind of shocked.”

That shock was evident and Team USA took fast advantage. A little more than four minutes after Malone’s goal, Parise scored on the power play. Then it was Erik Johnson, also on the power play, scoring a little more than two minutes later. Next, Patrick Kane scored the first of his two goals at 10:08, the Americans’ fourth goal on just seven shots.

The Finns tried to staunch their wounds by pulling a clearly rattled Kiprusoff, who stopped just three of seven shots, replacing him with backup Niklas Backstrom. He ended up being treated just as rudely. Kane scored his second goal at the 12:31 mark, less than two minutes after Backstrom entered the game. Fifteen seconds later, Paul Stastny scored to end one of the most dominant offensive stretches in recent Olympic history.

“It was a crazy 12 minutes,” said Kane, who played with a swagger that had been missing for much of this tournament. “I’ve never been a part of something like that. It seemed like we were scoring every shift, which was pretty amazing.

“It was a great 15 minutes for us. It would have been nice to play a full 60. But we still have more in the tank. It was a great start and it’s an awesome feeling to be going to the gold-medal game.”

The Americans did not score any more goals in the game’s final 47 minutes, but they didn’t take their foot off the gas either. Instead, they concentrated on the defensive side of the game, playing strong in their own zone, back-checking like demons and limiting neutral zone turnovers.

American goalie Ryan Miller faced just 18 shots without allowing a goal in the 48:29 he played before being replaced by Tim Thomas, who got his first Olympic action and allowed Finland’s only goal, by Antti Miettinen off a deflection with 5:14 remaining in the game.

“We were willing to play a game where Finland had to settle down and we were willing to settle down a little bit,” Miller told NHL.com. “We kept them off the board and that is a great accomplishment. I think they have some great skill players that want to get open and we did not let them. Their one goal goes off (Jack Johnson)’s heel and goes top shelf. A little more heel and it goes wide, a little lower and it is a block. I thought we did a great job.”

So did American coach Ron Wilson, who went out of his way to praise the work of his defensemen, who used good stick placement to cut off the passing lanes that the Finns often use to a lethal advantage.

But Finland never recovered from the grievous wounds suffered in the first dozen minutes. It was an unjust end for the veteran core of the Finnish national team that has delivered its country so many proud moments in the past decade, including a silver medal in Torino and a second-place medal at the 2004 World Cup of Hockey.

“It’s obviously very disappointing, very tough,” forward Teemu Selanne told NHL.com. “When a game is over after 12 minutes, I don’t know what to say. I’m stunned. This has never happened in my career on the national level. I don’t know what happened.”

What happened is the Americans sensed an opponent’s weakness and preyed mercilessly on it, showing a killer instinct that has been missing to this point in the competition.

Now, the Americans believe they are playing the best hockey of this two-week tournament and they are ready to embrace the opportunity to win the country’s first hockey gold medal — no matter the opponent — since the “Miracle on Ice” in Lake Placid 30 years ago.

“I like our chances against either team,” Wilson said.

Per Nesn:

The Czech Republic finished its quarterfinal matchup with Finland with zero goals and six penalties. Needless to say, the Czechs are on their way home from Vancouver.

Miikka Kiprusoff stood up to all 31 Czech shots, backstopping Finland to a 2-0 victory over the Czechs. Finland will go on to face the United States on Friday in the semifinals.

The game was scoreless after 53 minutes before Niklas Hagman scored on a power play, which came as a result of Martin Erat‘s clearing a puck over the glass for a delay of game. Valtteri Filppula later added an empty-net goal with 1:35 left in the game.

For the Czechs, Tomas Vokoun was nearly as good as Kiprusoff, making 29 saves on 30 shots. It was a tip-in goal from Hagman that broke the tie and eventually won the game for the Finns. The goal was aided by Czech defenseman Pavel Kubina was stuck behind the net, forced to retrieve his helmet. If it were an NHL game, he could continue playing helmet-free, but in the international rules, he either had to retrieve his helmet or head to the bench. Kubina’s absence freed some space for Hagman for the goal, but even Hagman wasn’t a fan of how the goal was scored.

“It was good for us he lost his helmet, but it’s a stupid rule,” Hagman told The Associated Press. “I know they want to keep it safe, [but] if you lose a helmet, you should let the guy play. I don’t know what they’re thinking, but that’s the rules and you have to play with them.”

Per NHL.com:

Sweden waited until it had more on the line than just a couple of points in the standings to strut its gold medal stuff out for the hockey world to see.

With rival Finland on the opposite side in a rematch of the 2006 gold-medal game, the Swedes played their strongest game of the tournament. They dominated on special teams and coasted behind another perfect outing by Henrik Lundqvist to a 3-0 victory in the final game of a wild day of rivalries here at Canada Hockey Place.

Sweden (3-0-0-0) won Group C and falls in as the second seed in the quarterfinals behind upstart Team USA. It has two days off before playing the winner of Tuesday’s game between Slovakia and Norway.

The Swedes are on the same side of the bracket as Canada and Russia, but they won’t have to go through both hockey superpowers on their way to the gold-medal game because if Canada beats Germany it will play Russia in the quarterfinals.

By virtue of goal differential, Finland also earned a bye into the quarterfinals as the fourth seed and will play either Latvia or the Czech Republic on Wednesday. The Finns finished the preliminary round plus-6 in and the fifth-seeded Czechs were only plus-3.

“Yeah, we’re happy with the first three games, but on Wednesday (in the quarterfinals) it doesn’t really matter. You have to start over,” Lundqvist told NHL.com. “Your mindset has to be: ‘The first five minutes.’ And you just have to be so solid, you can’t really afford to take too many penalties or make many mistakes.

“We feel good. We should feel good. At the same time, on Wednesday, it’s just down to one game. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past.”

The Swedes owe Sunday’s win to their special teams, which were outstanding.

Forward Loui Eriksson converted on a pair of power-play goals and Sweden was 7-for-7 on the penalty kill, a remarkable feat considering Finland had the best power play in the tournament (6-for-12) coming into the game.

Sweden had to kill off five penalties in the second period, including a pair of 5-on-3s totaling 1:39.

“We had a chance to practice the PK,” Henrik Zetterberg joked to NHL.com.

The Swedes looked good. Their penalty killers, led by Zetterberg up front, clogged up the shooting lanes and kept the Finns to the outside. It was the perfect way to defend a dangerous power play.

“We watched some of their films, what they were trying to do, and our guys just did an amazing job being in the shooting lanes,” Sweden assistant coach Tommy Albelin told NHL.com. “When it got past our guys in the shooting lanes, Henrik (Lundqvist) was there to stop the pucks. There wasn’t a whole lot of rebounds laying around either, which is another reason why we were pretty good.”

Sweden sent the dagger into the Finns less than four minutes after killing off their second 5-on-3. Eriksson scored his second power-play goal of the game with 1:52 remaining by using his long reach and even longer stick to wrap the puck around Miikka Kiprusoff’s outstretched left skate, squeezing the puck inside the left post.

“Yeah, I got a long stick today and he almost saved it there, but I got it through,” Eriksson told NHL.com. “There was about an inch.”

Lundqvist was perfect against 20 shots for his second shutout of the tournament in as many games. He stopped 21 shots in Sweden’s opener Wednesday night against Germany for a 2-0 win. Jonas Gustavsson played against Belarus on Friday.

“We had a lot of respect for their power play, but we did an amazing job on the PK and that was the difference,” Lundqvist said. “That was key for us, that we could kill all those minutes. They had a lot of opportunities on their power play but we made it tough for them to take what they wanted.”

Sweden took advantage of Finland’s discipline problems in the first period when Eriksson scored from the low slot 6:41 into the game. Nicklas Backstrom, who had a goal and an assist, sent him a saucer pass and after missing on the first attempt, Eriksson whacked the puck past Kiprusoff with Niko Kapanen out of position behind him.

“The Swedes are a very good team when they have the lead,” Finland coach Jukka Jalonen said. “The game was over I would say after the second period.”

Backstrom made it 2-0 early in the second period when he roofed a shot from the high slot over Kiprusoff’s catching glove. Daniel Sedin sent him a perfect pass from behind the goal line.

“I think this is when the tournament really started,” Zetterberg said. “We wanted to have a good game, a 60-minute game and we did. We’re looking forward to the quarterfinal now.”

It wasn’t a totally clean night for the Swedes. Patric Hornqvist left the game late in the second period after he got elbowed hard in the face by Joni Pitkanen. Hornqvist had to be helped off the ice and he didn’t return, but neither did Pitkanen.

The Finnish defenseman received a five-minute major for checking to the head and neck area and a game misconduct. As a result of the game misconduct, he is suspended for Finland’s quarterfinal-round game.

Hornqvist is also questionable, Sweden coach Bengt-Ake Gustafsson said.

“He’s got to go through some medical things (Monday),” Gustafsson said. “He’s not in too bad shape, but if we played (Monday) he wouldn’t be able to play. But, we have two days.”

Per NHL.com:

Teemu Selanne set the all-time Olympic scoring record Friday night in Vancouver by assisting on Kimmo Timonen’s second goal of the game as Finland jumped out to a 3-0 lead over Germany.

Selanne drew the secondary assist on Timonen’s goal with 3:57 remaining in the second period. It was his 37th point in Olympic competition (20 goals, 17 assists), spanning five separate Winter Games beginning in 1992.

“I’m not a big numbers guy, especially when I’m still playing, but maybe one day I’ll look back,” Selanne said in a TV interview after the game. “I’ve obviously played a long time and played with great players who helped make this possible. It’s a nice honor.”

Selanne had been tied with Valeri Kharlamov of Russia, Vlastimil Bubnik of the former Czechoslovakia and Harry Watson of Canada.

• The average age of the U.S. roster is 26.5.
• The team has only three returning Olympians (Drury, Rafalski, Langenbrunner).
• Defenceman Ryan Suter is the son of Bob Suter who played on the 1980 gold medal team.
• The team has two #1 NHL Draft selections Patrick Kane (2007), Erik Johnson (2006).

• Team Canada includes 12 players aged 25 or younger, and 15 who are first-time Olympians.
• Chris Pronger is the lone veteran who played for Canada’s 1998 Olympic team. He will play in his fourth consecutive Olympics. (Martin Brodeur was on the ’98 roster but didn’t play.)
• Four members of the 2010 roster helped Canada win its first gold in 50 years at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, USA. They are Martin Brodeur, Jarome Iginla, Scott Niedermayer, and Chris Pronger.
• Seven players are returnees from the Turin roster. They include: Martin Brodeur, Dany Heatley, Jarome Iginla, Roberto Luongo, Rick Nash, Chris Pronger, and Joe Thornton.
• All selected players except Patrice Bergeron were on Canada’s summer orientation camp roster.

• The Czech Republic won the historic 1998 Olympic hockey tournament in Nagano. That was the first time the NHL took a break for the biggest winter sport event. Twelve year later, one player from ’98 remains on the Czech team: Jaromir Jagr.
• It will be Jagr’s fourth Olympic Games. Tomas Kaberle, Pavel Kubina, Petr Cajanek and Patrik Elias will appear in their third Olympics.
• Nine returning players were on the team that won bronze in Turin 2006. Twelve represented the Czech Republic in the 2009 World Championship.
• Most players on the team (16) come from the NHL. Five are from Russia, and two from the Czech Extraliga, including league scoring leader Roman Cervenka.

• Forwards Jere Lehtinen (1994, 1998, 2002, 2006) and Teemu Selänne (1992, 1998, 2002, 2006) will play in their fifth Olympic Winter Games. It’ll be the fourth time for Kimmo Timonen, Saku Koivu and Ville Peltonen.
• Peltonen has played the most international games (243) and scored the most goals (78) for Finland.
• The team looks quite different from the 2009 IIHF World Championship squad. Only six players on the Vancouver 2010 roster played in that tournament.
• Fourteen players from Turin 2006 will get another shot at winning the first Olympic gold for Finland. Four  years ago, they settled for silver with a painful loss to Sweden in the final.
• Finnish coach Jukka Jalonen had plenty of choices for his Olympic roster. He chose to go with 18 NHLers, four players from the Russian KHL, and one from Sweden.

• Germany’s roster features seven players from North America (6 NHL, 1 AHL), while the other 16 players come from the German league.
• Only two NHL players were not included, but are on the reserve list: Jochen Hecht and Christoph Schubert.
• Sven Felski has the  most international experience with 140 national team games, including the 2006 Olympics and nine World Championships.
• Seven players on the preliminary roster represented Germany in Turin 2006, while 10 played in the 2009 World Championship.

• Switzerland is relying on a young defence corps. Four defencemen are 24 years of age or younger and have a combined experience of three World Championships.
• Switzerland is the only country that has players from the 2010 World U20 Championship on its Olympic roster, with blueliners Roman Josi and Luca Sbisa.
• Sixteen of the 23 players play in the Swiss National League A, followed by the NHL (2), AHL (2), Russia (1), Sweden (1) and the WHL (1).
• Two Canadian-born players are not part of the team. Paul DiPietro and Ryan Gardner were not included, but there’s a new Canadian-born player. Hnat Domenichelli is the only roster player that is not Swiss-trained.
• Eighteen players were on the team that represented Switzerland at the 2009 Worlds on home ice in Berne, while 10 players participated in the 2006 Olympics.

• Fifteen out of 23 players come from Dinamo Riga, the Latvian team in the Russian KHL. The remaining eight players come from teams in the NHL (2), AHL (2), Germany (2), and Russian KHL (2).
• Head coach Olegs Znaroks, who was the assistant coach in Turin 2006, decided to go without the third Latvian NHL player, Los Angeles Kings winger Raitis Ivanans. He has represented his native country only once (in the 2008 World Championship).
• Sandis Ozolins has made a comeback at age 37 to play for Dinamo Riga, but he’s not on the roster for a third Olympic appearance. Ozolins is the skater that gets the most ice time with Dinamo, and also the top-scoring defenceman.
• Apart from 1936, Latvia has only participated twice in the Olympics in the post-Soviet era: in Salt Lake City 2002 and Turin 2006. For five players, it will be their third Olympics: goalkeepers Edgars Masalskis and Sergejs Naumovs; defencemen Karlis Skrastins and Rodrigo Lavins; and forward Aleksandrs Nizivijs. Thirteen players on this team also played in Turin.
• Nineteen players were on the team that reached the quarterfinals in the 2009 World Championship. Only one player has no World Championship experience: 22-year-old Dinamo forward Gints Meija.

• Defenceman Tommy Jakobsen is the only player with Olympic experience. The 39-year-old played in Norway’s last Olympic hockey tournament on home ice in Lillehammer 1994 as well as in Albertville 1992.
• Head coach Roy Johansen was also part of the 1992 Olympic team. He also participated in 1984 and 1988.
• Twenty-one players on this roster were on Norway’s team at the 2009 World Championship. There is one big absentee: veteran defenceman Anders Myrvold. This former NHLer (Colorado, Boston, New York Islanders, and Detroit) was not put on the list for Vancouver 2010.
• The Swedish Elitserien continues to be the most popular destination for the best Norwegian players. Eleven players come from Swedish top-league teams, followed by the Norwegian league (6) and the German DEL (3). Norway will use one player from each of the following: the NHL, the KHL, and Finland.

• 21 players come from two leagues: 13 from the NHL and 8 from the KHL. One player comes from a Swiss club. Zigmund Palffy is the only player from the Slovak Extraliga.
• Only two NHL players were not added to the roster: Marek Svatos and Boris Valabik.
• Miroslav Satan and Lubomir Visnovsky will play their fourth Olympic Games in Vancouver. For Lubos Bartecko, Pavol Demitra, Marian Hossa and Jozef Stümpel, it will be the third Olympics.
• Defenceman Martin Strbak has played the most games for the national team (146), while Miroslav Satan has scored the most goals (70).
• Chicago forward Tomas Kopecky has never played for the men’s national team before. The last time he represented Slovakia was in the 2002 World U20 Championship.
• Eight players on the roster won the 2002 World Championship in Sweden: Rastislav Stana,  Richard Lintner, Martin Strbak, Lubomir Visnovsky, Lubos Bartecko, Zigmund Palffy, and Josef Stümpel.

• Nicklas Lidström and Daniel Alfredsson are on the roster to play their fourth Olympic Winter Games.
• Sweden is the nation with most European players in the NHL. 19 players from the preliminary rosters come from the NHL, three from the Swedish Elitserien, one from the Russian KHL.
• When Sweden announced the roster on December 27, four of the key players were injured: Kronwall, Alfredsson, Forsberg and Zetterberg.
• 13 players from the provisional roster won the gold in Turin 2006.

• All players are picked from the two arguably best leagues in the world with 14 NHL players and 9 KHL players.
• Sergei Gonchar will play his fourth Olympics. It will be the third Olympic Games for three six players (Bryzgalov, Markov, Afinogenov, Datsyuk, Fedorov, Kovalchuk).
• Salavat Yulayev Ufa has most players on the team with Dmitri Kalinin, Viktor Kozlov, Alexander Radulov and Sergei Zinoviev. Also the coaching tandem, Vyacheslav Bykov and Igor Zakharkin, comes from Salavat.
• Eight players have won both the 2008 and 2009 World Championships: Grebeshkov, Kalinin, Korneyev, Nikulin, Kovalchuk, Morozov, Radulov, Zinoviev.

• Mikhail Zakharov is the newest coach from all Olympic hockey teams. He was hired in November to succeed Glen Hanlon, and had his first exhibition games with Belarus in mid-December.
• Belarus will be one of the few teams to have brothers on the team with Andrei and Sergei Kostitsyn, who also play together at the Montreal Canadiens.
• Veterans Andrei Mezin and Ruslan Salei are the only players to represent Belarus in all three Olympic Winter Games participations (1998, 2002, 2010).
• Seven players come from the same club, Dynamo Minsk, the Belarusian entry in the Russian Kontinental Hockey League.