phelps

what a mess! good luck to you, to all Slovakian hockey fans and to Slovakian hockey, also... however, at least you have your main sport website (and newspapers, I guess) writing about hockey each day of the year and every hour of the day, well before any other sport discipline... meanwhile here's how it looks our main sport website/newspaper... http://www.gazzetta.it/ It's only about Gossip, Soccer, Ferrari, Valentino Rossi and now, just because it's Giro time, Cycling... Hockey doesn't even exists on the main menu...they write about it only when some atrocious accident happens (and generally they write about it without knowing of what they're talking of)...

hopefully his life isn't under threat anymore...even if he's in very serious conditions (multiple abdominal trauma and severe concussion)... he has been moved to a renomated brain treatment/surgery specialized hospital in Cesena... here are some pictures from the accident's location... http://www.corsedimoto.com/gallery/gallery-ecco-le-foto-dellincidente-di-nicky-hayden/?intcmp=foto-hayden EDIT: according to some late news (unofficial sources directly from the Bufalini Hospital in Cesena), Nicky's life is still in danger...it looks that the situation is worse than expected...

well, being a better team than 2014 didn't take a big effort, actually... I don't remember anything worse than that experience in the last 25 years of Italian Hockey history... the 3 losses in the last minute or so of the games, instead, in my opinion are more related with the lack of experience of the majority of the current players of our team, rather than a lack of stamina... meanwhile the lack of scoring efficiency has a lot to do with the technical and physical skills of our players...it's clear that we lack at least 2 or 3 big, heavy snipers in front of the cage that can translate the great build up work of people like Scandella, Diego and Simon Kostner, Anton Bernard, Morini into goals...in all of our games, I've watched way too much circling around the net without anyone in front of the opposing netminder ready to touch the puck into the net...if we can't find someone with those skills, I don't see how we can improve this part of our game (moreover, the only player more or less like this we have on our roster - Joachim Ramoser - was out because of an injury...we haven't even been lucky)... finally, the Egger episode... I didn't even mentioned it yesterday because it was clear that it was only an unlucky accident due to the really shameful ice conditions... in my opinion the only one to blame is the ice master of the Lanxess Arena... I hope however that this experience has been useful to our guys and that they can rapidly improve and get back in the Top Class Worlds as soon as possible... but you know, without a competitive National Tournament is very difficult to develop a decent number of very good players...only those lucky ones who can get a place in the best European and/or North American teams have a chance to grow up quickly and became real globally recognized top players... and we don't have anything even close to a serious National Championship, so we are always in danger to get short with our National Team roster and find very few players good enough for this kind of Hockey... p.s. today's afternoon games have been great (especially the big rivalry battle between RUS and USA)...a very entertaining show (way better than last night's NHL game between Pittsburgh and Ottawa, which came out a bit disappointing, if compared with the previous NHL playoffs nights)...

Ok, we don't belong to this level of hockey... and our relegation was easily predictable well before the start of the World Champs... but...c'mon, man! what a painful and undeserved way to leave the top class it was, today's match!

well, it might even be your National Animal, but here in Italy we know them very well...we also have a small town named "Chamois"... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamois,_Aosta_Valley http://www.comune.chamois.ao.it/ and we also cook them in many different ways (especially as a sausage for tagliatelle/pappardelle - a kind of long and slim size pasta made with eggs and flour - but not only...they're so good)... https://www.google.it/search?q=tagliatelle+al+ragu+di+camoscio&client=firefox-b&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMuKyNhPDTAhWrI8AKHe9fBI4QsAQIYA&biw=1920&bih=1091 http://www.italy-recipes.com/ricette/dettaglio_ita.asp?index=1568&titolo=pasta-al-sugo-di-camoscio http://digilander.libero.it/valtellina2002/piatti_tipici/Tagliatellealsugodicamoscio.html http://www.mytasteita.com/click/index/14241764/cucinarecarne.it http://www.cottoepostato.it/GoToRecipe.aspx?ric=http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/fXZA/~3/l39MEO6jKZA/camoscio-con-polenta.html

my heart's broken... if only hockey games were scheduled on 58mins40secs and not full 60 mins, Italy would be safe with at least 4 points and Slovakia would be still at 0... but the truth is that 2 silly mistakes in the last minute or so of 2 different games and an awful PK (by far the worst I've ever seen by our team) are sending Italy back to the Hell of Division IA next year (unless the totally unexpected happens)...

well, in Wrestling they have a tradition in "buying" (better, taking advantage of their decisions...because I don't think they actually bought those athletes in the same way Azerbaijan, Qatar etc. - just to make an example - do) and not only in selling talents... remember the lights of the Nazarian, Moureiko, Guri...all of them winning global medals for Bulgaria, but coming from different Countries... by the way, we live in a global world, so to me it's quite normal to see athletes travelling to find better chances, like any other people do... the only thing that sports officials should do is avoiding - no matter how - shameful situations like those of Azerbaijan, Turkey and/or the Gulf Countries (and Greece in the past, nowadays I don't think they are a "threat" in that sense anymore)...

52nd European Senior Championships (Kocaeli, TUR) Team Finals, Final session Women's Events Team Kata Gold: Italy b. France 5-0 Bronze: Spain b. Portugal 5-0 & Turkey b. Germany 5-0 Men's Events Team Kata Gold: Spain b. Italy 5-0 Bronze: Russia b. Azerbaijan 4-1 & France b. Montenegro 3-2 Team Kumite Gold: Turkey b. France 2-1 Bronze: Ukraine b. Germany 3-1 & Croatia b. Italy 3-1 So, Turkey wins the Medal Table with 4 Gold Medals, followed by Italy and Spain with 3... Ukraine got 2 and Austria, Latvia, France and Serbia complete the field with 1 Gold Medal each... Finally, 16 Countries won at least 1 Medal overall...

after watching today's Russian "lesson" to Italy, I thought: "God, bring us back to a 12-team Top Division Worlds"... then, I saw the French guys... but I didn't change my mind...it was only an unexpected and exceptional "accident" for the Finns... @hckosice by the way, it doesn't look that good for your guys...once you score a good goal, the refs don't even give you that...

wow! we got so close to a real sport's miracle... and we actually deserved more than we got in the end... and if it wasn't for Hudacek's goal 64 seconds before the final whistle, you got so close to a shameful relegation... after having watched today's games (SVK-ITA, but also LAT-DEN), I have to admit I'm very worried about your team...I didn't really expect them to live such a nightmare against Italy (even if we played surprisingly well, with a very well organized defence and many effective counter-attacks)... in particular, I saw too many individual efforts and very few organized set plays from your guys...and I never saw that sense of urgency that every team needs, especially when they find themselves unexpectedly behind in the score... basically, the opposite of what the Latvian team showed for the entire game... p.s. Bernard today played very well (as he did throughout the entire season in Finland), but his Achilles' heel has always been "consistency"...so, I'm not that confident that he's going to repeat today's performance when it will really count as a do-or-die (the last game against Latvia, at this point...I don't think we can sum up any point against the supposed "big guns" of the group, especially tomorrow against Russia I'm scared we'll get a severe punishment)... however, today it was a very emotional afternoon that I never expected to live...so, thanks Blue Team...in any case!

52nd European Senior Championships (Kocaeli, TUR) Individual Finals, Second session Women's Events Individual Kata Gold: Sandra Sanchez Jaime (ESP) b. Viviana Bottaro (ITA) 4-1 Bronze: Dilara Bozan (TUR) b. Biserka Radulovic (MNE) 5-0 & Sandy Scordo (FRA) b. Jasmin Bleul (GER) 5-0 Kumite -50kg Gold: Kateryna Kryva (UKR) b. Duygu Bugur (GER) 8-1 Bronze: Serap Ozcelik (TUR) b. Sara Radichevska (MKD) 6-0 & Bettina Plank (AUT) b. Adriana Crohnkova (CZE) 3-0 Men's Events Individual Kata Gold: Damian Hugo Quintero Capdevila (ESP) b. Alì Sofuoglu (TUR) 3-2 Bronze: Roman Heydarov (AZE) b. Botond Nagy (HUN) 5-0 & Mattia Busato (ITA) b. Peter Fabian (SLO) 5-0 Kumite -60kg Gold: Kalvis Kalnins (LAT) b. Marko Antic (SRB) 1-0 Bronze: Dominik Imrich (SVK) b. Oleg Filipovych (UKR) 2-0 & Angelo Crescenzo (ITA) b. Eray Samdan (TUR) 8-5 Kumite -67kg Gold: Burak Uygur (TUR) b. Alexandr Gutnik (RUS) 3-1 Bronze: Carlos Leon Valbuena (ESP) b. Matej Homola (SVK) 0-0 (Hantei) & Mario Hodzic (MNE) b. Yves Martial Tadissi (HUN) 7-2 So, Turkey get their 3rd title and take the provisional solitary lead in the Medal Table, followed by Italy and Spain with 2 Gold Medals... Austria, France, Latvia, Serbia and Ukraine finally take 1 Gold Medal each and complete the winners' list for what concerns the Individual events... in total, 15 Countrues have got at least 1 Medal (no matter the colour)... Considering the Olympic Events only, we have a 3-way tie on top of the list: Italy, Spain and Turkey, with 2 Gold Medals each... Serbia and France got the remaining 2 Golds... by the way, today also the first of the Team Events was contested (the remaining events are scheduled for tomorrow): Women's Events Team Kumite Gold: Ukraine b. Turkey 2-1 Bronze: France b. Slovenia 2-0 & Slovakia b. Germany 2-1

52nd European Senior Championships (Kocaeli, TUR) Individual Finals, First session Women's Events Kumite -55kg Gold: Tuba Yakan (TUR) b. Sara Cardin (ITA) 1-0 Bronze: Anzhelika Terliuga (UKR) b. Ana Draskovic (MNE) 5-0 & Jovana Georgieva (MKD) b. Emily Thouy (FRA) 1-1 (Hantei) Kumite -61kg Gold: Jovana Prekovic (SRB) b. Lucie Ignace (FRA) 4-2 Bronze: Merve Coban (TUR) b. Nailya Gataullina (RUS) 3-0 & Anita Serogina (UKR) b. Alexandra Haag (SWE) 0-0 (Hantei) Kumite -68kg Gold: Alisa Buchinger (AUT) b. Alizèe Agier (FRA) 5-1 Bronze: Sanja Cvrkota (SRB) b. Cristina Vizcaino Gonzalez (ESP) 3-0 & Hafsa Seyda Burucu (TUR) b. Elena Quirici (SUI) 0-0 (Hantei) Kumite +68kg Gold: Anne Laure Florentin (FRA) b. Meltem Hocaoglu (TUR) 1-0 Bronze: Hana Antunovic (SWE) b. Anastasya Stepashko (UKR) 2-0 & Ivana Zaytseva (RUS) b. Dominika Tatarova (SVK) 2-0 Men's Events Kumite -75kg Gold: Luigi Busà (ITA) b. Stanislav Horuna (UKR) 3-3 (Hantei) Bronze: Erman Eltemur (TUR) b. Ruslans Sadikovs (LAT) 1-0 & Gabor Harspataki (HUN) b. Matus Lieskovsky (SVK) 3-0 Kumite -84kg Gold: Ugur Aktas (TUR) b. Berat Jakupi (MKD) 0-0 (Hantei) Bronze: Denis Denisenko (RUS) b. Georgios Tzanos (GRE) 1-0 & Timothy Petersen (NED) b. Noah Bitsch (GER) 5-0 Kumite +84kg Gold: Simone Marino (ITA) b. Enes Erkan (TUR) 2-0 Bronze: Slobodan Bitevic (SRB) b. Daniel Molnar (HUN) 1-0 & Shahin Atamov (AZE) b. Herolind Nitevschi (KOS) 2-1 So, Italy and Turkey take the provisional lead in the Medal Table with a couple of Golds each, meanwhile the other titles awarded this morning go to Austria, France and Serbia... in total, there are already 12 different Countries with at least 1 medal... Today's second session with the remaining Individual Finals is scheduled for 5.30 p.m. CET...

52nd European Senior Championships (Kocaeli, TUR) Team Competitions Preliminary Rounds completed...those are all the Medal Bouts (scheduled for Sunday): Women's Events Team Kata Gold: France vs Italy Bronze: Portugal vs Spain & Turkey vs Germany Team Kumite Gold: Turkey vs Ukraine Bronze: France vs Slovenia & Slovakia vs Germany Men's Events Team Kata Gold: Spain vs Italy Bronze: Azerbaijan vs Russia & France vs Montenegro Team Kumite Gold: Turkey vs France Bronze: Ukraine vs Germany & Italy vs Croatia The usual suspects, ITA-FRA-TUR have earned 2 spots in the Gold Medla finals each...ESP and UKR complete the field with just 1 shot at the most important medal colour... in total, 13 Countries have taken at least 1 spot in the Medal finals of the Team Competitions... with these numbers (and yesterday's) I think we can say that the European Karate has very good health and it's very widely practiced at the top level around the Continent... Tomorrow it's time for the Individual Finals...can't wait for those!

you can start with this... http://www.iihf.com/iihf-home/sport/intro-to-ice-hockey/ then some serious stuff...the full IIHF Rule Book for the 2014-2018 Olympic span... http://www.iihf.com/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/Sport/IIHF_Official_Rule_Book_2014-18_Web_V6.pdf

52nd European Senior Championships (Kocaeli, TUR) Individual Preliminary Rounds completed...those are all the Medal Bouts (scheduled for Saturday): Women's Events Individual Kata Gold: Viviana Bottaro (ITA) vs Sandra Sanchez Jaime (ESP) Bronze: Biserka Radulovic (MNE) vs Dilara Bozan (TUR) & Jasmin Bleul (GER) vs Sandy Scordo (FRA) Kumite -50kg Gold: Kateryna Kryva (UKR) vs Duygu Bugur (GER) Bronze: Serap Ozcelik (TUR) vs Sara Radichevska (MKD) & Bettina Plank (AUT) vs Adriana Crohnkova (CZE) Kumite -55kg Gold: Sara Cardin (ITA) vs Tuba Yakan (TUR) Bronze: Ana Draskovic (MNE) vs Anzhelika Terliuga (UKR) & Jovana Georgieva (MKD) vs Emily Thouy (FRA) Kumite -61kg Gold: Jovana Prekovic (SRB) vs Lucie Ignace (FRA) Bronze: Nailya Gataullina (RUS) vs Merve Coban (TUR) & Alexandra Haag (SWE) vs Anita Serogina (UKR) Kumite -68kg Gold: Alisa Buchinger (AUT) vs Alizèe Agier (FRA) Bronze: Sanja Cvrkota (SRB) vs Cristina Vizcaino Gonzalez (ESP) & Hafsa Seyda Burucu (TUR) vs Elena Quirici (SUI) Kumite +68kg Gold: Meltem Hocaoglu (TUR) vs Anne Laure Florentin (FRA) Bronze: Hana Antunovic (SWE) vs Anastasya Stepashko (UKR) & Ivana Zaytseva (RUS) vs Dominika Tatarova (SVK) Men's Events Individual Kata Gold: Alì Sofuoglu (TUR) vs Damian Hugo Quintero Capdevila (ESP) Bronze: Botond Nagy (HUN) vs Roman Heydarov (AZE) & Peter Fabian (SLO) vs Mattia Busato (ITA) Kumite -60kg Gold: Marko Antic (SRB) vs Kalvis Kalnins (LAT) Bronze: Oleg Filipovych (UKR) vs Dominik Imrich (SVK) & Angelo Crescenzo (ITA) vs Eray Samdan (TUR) Kumite -67kg Gold: Alexandr Gutnik (RUS) vs Burak Uygur (TUR) Bronze: Matej Homola (SVK) vs Carlos Leon Valbuena (ESP) & Mario Hodzic (MNE) vs Yves Martial Tadissi (HUN) Kumite -75kg Gold: Stanislav Horuna (UKR) vs Luigi Busà (ITA) Bronze: Ruslans Sadikovs (LAT) vs Erman Eltemur (TUR) & Matus Lieskovsky (SVK) vs Gabor Harspataki (HUN) Kumite -84kg Gold: Berat Jakupi (MKD) vs Ugur Aktas (TUR) Bronze: Denis Denisenko (RUS) vs Georgios Tzanos (GRE) & Timothy Petersen (NED) vs Noah Bitsch (GER) Kumite +84kg Gold: Enes Erkan (TUR) vs Simone Marino (ITA) Bronze: Slobodan Bitevic (SRB) vs Daniel Molnar (HUN) & Herolind Nitevschi (KOS) vs Shahin Atamov (AZE) as expected, Turkey dominated the day and earned 6 places in the "big" finals... Italy followed with 4 and France is the 3rd strenght with 3 spots in the Gold Medal bouts... in total, 11 Countries will have at least 1 shot at Gold, meanwhile 22 different Countries will have at least a chance to win a medal in general (Bronze Medla bouts included)... in the 8 Olympic Classes, Turkey have 5 finalists and Italy 4 as the top 2 Countries in this special ranking... Tomorrow the Team Events preliminaries will be contested...

Thanks, my friend! yeah, between Slovak and Czech Tv I can watch basically every match on tv*... in Italy, TV rights have been taken by Fox Sports (pay-tv...which I also have on my lineup, by the way), but they will broadcast only the games of the Italian National Team and semifinals + finals...so, God bless Czech and Slovak Tv stations... *however I hope for all those people who don't see those wonderful tv stations that IIHF will offer the Free Live Streaming once again, as it happened in 2015 and 2016...

well...she might have been lucky with the draw, but she's improving after a good junior career and a difficult first part of her campaign among the senior ranks... and at least she managed to beat a very experienced girl, who even won a couple of bronze medals at the European Champs and at the World Champs before (not to mention her even more brilliant junior career)... here you can find some of Skujina and Da Col's achievements: https://unitedworldwrestling.org/DataBase

c'mon, man! you only have to win against Italy on Saturday to accomplish that mission... even without all those players, I think you can even think of making the quarterfinals...Latvia and Denmark are not such "monsters"...and Germany...well, maybe that match won't be so easy (especially because they play at home), but imho it's still affordable also for this Slovak team... the only question is: do they believe they can do it or not? if they don't have a bit of self-believe, even the game against Italy could become a nightmare (because I'm sure that Italy is weak, but they will play with great pride...and usually our heart is bigger than many of our opponents')... p.s. if you want, here's the ITA vs USA match live now (not sure it's free or if you need a VPN)... http://www.raisport.rai.it/dl/raiSport/dirette/ContentItem-49340f1d-5246-4cf7-931f-75d65af039e7.html

the stadium is almost sold out, but it's very small (less than 4000 seats)... if only our stupid NF made a bit of promotion to this event and if a bigger stadium was available, it would have been a lot more impressive landscape... Milan is a real Hockey Town...we just need "our team" (we don't need a new/other team...we want "our" team) back (and a decent Hockey Arena)... by the way, Italy is so weak...and this US team is even better than expected (with people like Johnny Gaudreau, Jack Eichel, Dylan Larkin, Jacob Trouba etc.)...

if you look at the WSF rankings in the 2 disciplines, those competing in one are not even ranked in the other...

X-games, but not only... but the most important thing is that the Olympic "governing body" is the socalled "Tokyo Skateboarding Commission", a joint venture between FIRS (the Roller Skating Federation) and ISF (Intenational Skateboarding Federation)...meanwhile the best athletes in the World are those competing unde the World Skateboarding Federation... p.s. this sport it's only about USA and Brazil (and very few other exceptions...but medallists in Tokyo will come almost surely from those 2 Countries)... it's a lot worse than Surfing... here a couple of interesting links... the Tokyo Commission: http://skateboarding2020.com/ the ISF site: http://internationalskateboardingfederation.org/ FIRS site: http://www.rollersports.org/ Tokyo 2020 Skateboard page: https://tokyo2020.jp/en/games/sport/olympic/skateboarding/ and, outside the institutional governing bodies, the WSF homepage (rankings in Bowl and Street disciplines show the best specialists in the World, those who should fight for the medals in Tokyo...if they compete there...and that's not so sure): http://worldskateboardingfederation.org/ p.s. US legend Alex Sorgente is in talk with the Italian NOC to represent Italy in Tokyo, if WSF athletes will choose to go (in this case we would have really big chances to get something out of this mess)...

and now for me it's time to switch to the Under-18 Worlds...the second semifinal between USA and Sweden (the Americans are 2-1 ahead after 2 periods)... and then game #5 of the first round of the NHL playoffs between Minnesota and St.Louis... it's a great hockey night!

game over! mission accomplished! HC'05 iClinic Banskà Bystrica are the new Slovak champions!

HC'05 iClinic Banskà Bystrica are on their way to win the Slovak Extraliga title...still a few minutes to go in game #5 of the final series against HK Nitra...and it's party time for them!

Canada names first players - 18 NHLers nominated for Worlds http://www.iihfworlds2017.com/en/news/canada-names-first-players/