phelps

Since we're heading towards the end of the Olympic Qualification Period, it's time to make a short Summary of what's has already been determined until now... as many people might know, the time window to qualify for Rio 2016 goes from April 2015 to April 3rd, 2016 but right now, all the Nations qualified for the 4 Team Events have already been decided. They are (in order of Ranking): Men's Team Epee France (World Ranking Top 4) Ukraine (World Ranking Top 4) Italy (World Ranking Top 4) Switzerland (World Ranking Top 4) Russia (European Quota Place) Hungary (Repechage Quota Place since NO African Team ended in the Top 16 of the OQR) South Korea (Asian Quota Place) Venezuela (Panamerican Quota Place) Men's Team Foil Russia (World Ranking Top 4) Italy (World Ranking Top 4) France (World Ranking Top 4) United States (World Ranking Top 4) China (Asian Quota Place) Great Britain (European Quota Place) Egypt (African Quota Place) Brazil (Panamerican Quota Place) Women's Team Epee Romania (World Ranking Top 4) China (World Ranking Top 4) Russia (World Ranking Top 4) Estonia (World Ranking Top 4) South Korea (Asian Quota Place) United States (Panamerican Quota Place) Ukraine (European Quota Place) France (Repechage Quota Place since NO African Team ended in the Top 16 of the OQR) Women's Team Sabre Russia (World Ranking Top 4) Ukraine (World Ranking Top 4) France (World Ranking Top 4) United States (World Ranking Top 4) South Korea (Asian Quota Place) Italy (European Quota Place) Poland (Repechage Quota Place since NO African Team ended in the Top 16 of the OQR) Mexico (Panamerican Quota Place)

we wouldn't have any chance even if we play against the other division B teams...there's no need to involve those top class teams to sweep us out of the Olympics...

from 1st to 4th of September, to be precise... p.s. my 2 cents about those tournaments go on Belarus, Germany and Norway to qualify for the Games...

It's nice to see how this thread started with the most news about the senseless World Cup of Hockey... and right now that we're just arrived to the best moment of the Hockey season...almost everywhere (apart from the NHL, which has a month and a half left in their regular season) it's play-offs time! so, I'd like to take a while to talk about those European Leagues which already ended their regular season... in the KHL, CSKA Moscow and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl dominated the field in the Western Conference and overall, meanwhile in the Eastern Conference Avangard Omsk narrowly beat Sibir Novosibirsk for the eastern title... then, the play-offs started and the first round is also almost done, with CSKA Moscow, Dynamo Moscow, SKA St. Petersburg (disappointing during the RS, but able to defeat the second best team from the RS, Lokomotiv, with a clear result of 4 games to 1) and the surprising Torpedo Nizhni Novgorod (4-2 over the no.2 seed and third best team from the RS, Jokerit Helsinki) advancing through to the Western Conference semifinals; on the other hand, in the East, Avangard Omsk and Sibir Novosibirsk are also through to the Conference semifinals, meanwhile the series Salavat Yulaev Ufa vs AK Bars Kazan and Metallurg Magnitogorsk vs Avtomobilist Ekaterinenburg are not over yet... another Top European League that already ended their Regular Season is the Swiss NLA, with last year's runner-up ZSC Lions (Zürich) earning the honors in the first part of the championship...the play-offs are set to start tonight with a great match up between no.1 seed ZSC Lions and the team with the best attendance in Europe, SC Bern (that despite their super economical budget had another very disappointing RS...once again)... in the Austrian Open league, EBEL, the usual suspect Red Bull Salzburg filled their contract in the RS...now let's see if they can confirm themselves also in the play-offs, which are running right now (round #1 is not over yet)... all the other main European leagues, instead, have still another weekend of regular season to be played, so we will be back to make a summary in the next few days... of course, any comment about the Ice Hockey European leagues is more than welcome...

I'm very happy to see the Forum back... I hope that all the troubles have gone and that we can have a bright future in front of us...