On the 30th of January at the “Raketa” stadium there appeared souvenir booths. At the moment there are only two of them. Provided the sales are hot, there will be organized more trade points. The greatest demand is for the Zelant-magnates (50 rubles per magnate), mini-sticks (150 rubles) and T-shirts with the Championship symbols (100-250 rubles). Scarves of the Russian select teams (150 rubles), caps (100 rubles), cups (60 rubles) or badges (20 rubles) are also available.

In Brief about:

The national team of the USA

In fact, the US team represents the select team of Minnesota, combined of 8 club representatives. All the players are in good mood, despite the complete defeat from Russians. Americans are conscious of their opponents strength and do not claim for high results. Moreover, the American team lacks its strongest players: ten days before the beginning of the championship the leading American bandy-player Jasper Holder broke his leg; another member of the team stretched his ligaments. The American players are not used to the cold temperatures of Kazan city. They say, 11 degrees below zero is too much for them.

The select team of Canada is the only bandy team in the country. That’s why they are not extremely ambitious. Mainly students, some of them were to come to Russia with their parents due to the peculiarities of the Canadian legislation.

The national team of Hungary

The Hungarians are amateurs. They are also not supposed to get high results. There are some financial problems though the team tries not to pay attention to this. They had the so called “day-off” on the 30th of January, after the match with the select team of Canada. They can afford this do themselves so as their next game is on the 1st of February. In the evening they went sightseeing and visited night club “Doctor”.

The Swedish team set up a record of scoring goals in group A within the match with Americans. Its total score – 20:2. Afterwards Chris Halden the oldest player in the championship and the coach of the US team Chris Middlebrook as well as the representatives of the Swedish team (the head coach Kent Hultquist, the captain of the team Daniel Eriksson and the young Perr Hellmurs) shared their impressions with journalists.

Chris Middlebrook was sure, his players did their best when fighting with the rivals, but Swedish team was too strong

- It is not so important for me how many goals my goalkeeper has missed, - he said, - I care much more for the team game. I bet, this Championship will give our team much experience and practice.

The captain of the Swedish team Daniel Eriksson told several words about Russian players. He underlined that he admired their skills, talents and professional attitude to bandy. He used to come in touch with many players form “Vodnik” and liked them very much.

All the participants of the press-conference underlined the high organization level of the tournament.

1.02.2005