Welcome BNG, and Some Ivan Hlinka Talk

Hey everyone, so today I'm going to keep this short and sweet, as I have a few things to take care of.

First of all, I just want to say thank you to Ricky Mazella of Buffalo Nickel Graphics for featuring this blog on his "Friends of BNG" page.  Ricky is a weekly writer for HockeyJerseyConcepts.com, and runs his own blog featuring his own concepts and concepts from other artists.  He has already reviewed my work on HJC once, and I look forward to seeing him review my work in the future.

I've also included a link to his blog on my "Links" page.  Or, for those time-efficient folk, you click the link here to go to http://rmconcepts.blogspot.ca right now.  He has some really cool designs, so it's worth a look.

*********************************************************************************

So I've been following the 2013 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament for the past few days, and wondering why I haven't been as excited for the tournament before as I am now.

This is the stepping stone for all of the world's best young hockey players.  Essentially, its the Under-18 World Championships.  The difficulty in large, hockey-mad countries like Canada and Russia are that the talent pool is so spread out, its hard to pick out the best players available.  Hockey Canada scouts are searching the country constantly just trying to find the best players.  The ones who eventually make it are often the stars of tomorrow.  In last year's tournament, the Canadian team had MacKinnon, Drouin, Domi, Fucale, Nurse, and Horvat, just to name a few of the top draft picks from last years draft.  Some of this year's team is expected to be first round picks in next year's draft.

Historically, this is a tournament that Canada has dominated, winning the tournament 17 times in it's 22 year history, including winning the last 5 tournaments.  The tournament is held in the summer, meaning many junior players who are busy on their junior teams during the official World Championship events are available for this tournament, so Canada usually sends a better team to this tournament than the IIHF World U18 Tournament.

The tournament started in 1991, being hosted by Japan for 4 out of its first 5 years (and Mexico the other year).  The tournament only contained 3 or 4 teams (Canada, USA, Russia and Japan), until 1997 when the tournament grew to 8 countries, the amount competing today.  In 1997, the tournament was hosted in Nelson/Castlegar, B.C.  After 1997, the tournament was hosted in Czech Republic and Slovakia every year.

This year, parity between the 8 top nations in hockey has never been more clear.  After the group stage, Canada, Czech Republic, and Switzerland are all tied in their group, with Switzerland being relegated due to goal differential, along with last place Sweden.  Yes, Sweden came in last, even after beating Canada in the round robin.  In the other group, USA, Russia, and Finland all finished within 2 points of each other, with Finland being relegated alongside winless Slovakia.

The semi-finals pit Canada against Russia, and the Czechs against the USA.  The Czechs are coming off a huge 5-2 win over Sweden in a must-win game to advance, while USA is coming off 2 straight wins while losing the tournament opener to Finland in OT.  Canada won the group despite losing to Sweden and being forced to OT by Switzerland, and take on Russia who's only loss so far has been against USA.

Should be interesting to see who comes out on top after the semis, but irregardless it should make for some exciting hockey.  At least there is something to watch this summer.