Sports

[CTG]

You must love Tyson Gay too...

[Krys TOFF]

Sharp semi-final results in handball, and finally it will be Denmark-Croatia for the final and not Germany-France. Damn it !

[CTG]

And even Tsonga lost, too bad for France... Serbian tennis is very strong now!

[BonzaiJoe]

Can you spot the odd one out?

[BonzaiJoe]

Looks like we won Judging by the shouts in the room next door. I'm too emo to watch sports.
Eat that, everyone else! (except South Americans)

[CTG]

Nuke on emos!!!

[JTK]

Congratulations Denmark!

I hope, that this was the last European Championship like that, too many games in too less time... in our newspaper Nikola Karabatic is very unhappy about the championship, like many players, and is not looking forward to the monday morning handball training today.

[Krys TOFF]

Congratulations Denmark!

Sure, nice match. I'm not sure France could have won in final versus a motivated Denmark like that. Sadly for France, Danish victory makes our Olympic qualify group harder : France will organize a tournament at home at the end of May versus Spain (ouch), Norway (in progress, still dangerous) and Tunisia (one of the best team of Africa continent) ! It will be hard...
A victory of Croatia would have made us fight an easier group (Russia, Algeria and future vice-champion of Asia).

I hope, that this was the last European Championship like that, too many games in too less time... in our newspaper Nikola Karabatic is very unhappy about the championship, like many players, and is not looking forward to the monday morning handball training today.

Sure, it was difficult for all the players to perform so many matches in less than 2 weeks... Obviously Karabatic was one of the most tired as he played a lot because he is a key member of French team. He had some rest versus Hungary as France was already qualified for semi-finals, but versus Croatia he lost too many shoots that should have not been missed. This happens to him each time he is too tired. He played much better versus Germany for the 3rd place match (France 36-26 Germany).

Apart from that, Sweden proved to be back progressively to their glory with reaching 5th place versus Norway while Poland exploit during World championship (finalist versus Germany) seems far away.

[BonzaiJoe]

Thank you on behalf of my country

About the many games in little time, our coach listed it as part of the reason why we won: we had all 16 players in rotation, so everybody got a decent amount of rest from time to time. This has really been a big thing here, TV was on for 3 hours just broadcasting the homecoming of the team, being celebrated all the way from the airport to the "Town hall square" in Copenhagen, lots of people there... I suppose now that our football team is dropping in quality, people turn to handball instead. I'm a bit sad that Croatia won the semi final against France, because if Denmark had played France in the final, we would have had a chance to beat all the good teams in tournament and be a more true champion. Now France can still say: "maybe we would have won" (although I acknowledge that you didn't, Krys )

[CTG]

It seems that sport topics are very popular in this forum. I suggest to open a separate subforum/childboard for it (moving all the sport topics there).

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

Alba Volán's first year in the very strong Austrian Erste Bank Ice Hockey League has finished at the moment.

Qualifying Round for the 7th-10th place (7th-8th joined the playoff):

7. ZM Olimpija Ljubljana (Slovenia) 12 pts (25:10)
8. TWK Innsbrucker Haie 10 pts (19:18)
--------------------------------------------------------
9. EC Graz 99ers 4 pts (9:19)
10. Alba Volán SC (Hungary) 4 pts (9:15)

(between 9th and 10th place, the results between the two teams decided: Alba-Graz 0-1, Graz-Alba 1-2 after penalty shootout)

Main Round for 1st-6th place:

1. EC Vienna Capitals 18 pts (40:23)
2. EC Klagenfurter AC 16 pts (45:30)
3. EHC Liwest Black Wings Linz 14 pts (36:35)
4. EC Red Bull Salzburg 13 pts (37:33)
5. EC Pasut Villacher SV 7 pts (29:44)
6. HK Acroni Jesenice (Slovenia) 6 pts (24:47)

Quarter finals:
Vienna-Innsbruck, KAC-Olimpija, Linz-Jesenice, Salzburg-VSV

The Regular Season standings were (which preceded the Main/Qualifying Round, and meant some bonus points for those)

1. EHC Liwest Black Wings Linz 53 pts (111:91)
2. EC Vienna Capitals 52 pts (122:86)
3. EC Red Bull Salzburg 48 pts (121:108)
4. HK Acroni Jesenice (Slovenia) 47 pts (100:94)
5. EC Klagenfurter AC 45 pts (119:102)
6. EC Pasut Villacher SV 42 pts (109:109)
-----------------------------------------------------
7. TWK Innsbrucker Haie 41 pts (124:116)
8. ZM Olimpija Ljubljana (Slovenia) 38 pts (108:107)
9. EC Graz 99ers 35 pts (99:132)
10. Alba Volán SC (Hungary) 14 pts (69:137)

Matches when we got at least a point:
Jesenice-Volán 2-1 a.e.t. (regular season)
Graz-Volán 4-3 a.e.t. (regular season)
Volán-Villach 3-2 (regular season)
Ljubljana-Volán 1-4 (regular season)
Volán-Innsbruck 1-2 a.p.s. (regular season)
Volán-Linz 3-0 (regular season)
Graz-Volán 4-3 a.e.t. (regular season)
Villach-Volán 3-6 (regular season)
Volán-Salzburg 4-1 (regular season)
Innsbruck-Volán 1-3 (qualifying round)
Graz-Volán 1-2 a.p.s. (qualifying round)

Biggest defeats:
Salzburg-Volán 7-0
Volán-Innsbruck 0-6

Very tough season for Alba Volán... now they can concentrate on the Hungarian Championship, where they are hot favourites. Our top players were really worthy for the Austrian League, they were dangerous for all of the teams: Palkovics scored 37 points in 42 matches (20 goals, 17 assists), they were among the league's really best, he was chosen for the All Stars game, too. Ocskay had 29 points (8+21), he was very good, too. Our team is very poor related to the Austrian teams, so we could not afford buying some great, NHL-level players like them. The Austrian teams were led by their foreign (American, Canadian) players, while Volán's best players were Hungarians - and the Palkovics line performed really very well. They were equal to the lines of the Austrian teams, which were "A" group level lines - but Hungary does not have more "A" group level players, and cannot afford buying international "A" group level players. In an "A" group level championship, it is not enough. I think a division-1 level hockey country's elite team did their best in a very strong "A" level championship. Let's hope they can join the league next year, too. I hope this was a great training for the division-1 WCH in April, played in Sapporo, Japan (against Ukraine, Japan, Estonia, Lithuania and Croatia).

Sorry if I was boring.

[CTG]

Would you skid in Klagenfurt?

[CTG]

Nice goal from Anita Görbicz.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBYbQ6AB-nc

[Chulk]

Nice goal from Anita Görbicz.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBYbQ6AB-nc

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

Nice results today in the NHL.

Philadelphia Flyers - New York Rangers 0-2
Pittsburgh Penguins - Los Angeles Kings 4-2

Well, Pens are quite good without injured Sidney Crosby, too! Great! And we are around halfway in Crosby's injury period (6-8 weeks)!

Division Standings (Atlantic)

1 Penguins 67 points/55 matches
2 Flyers 65/54
3 Devils 64/55
4 Rangers 62/58
5 Islanders 54/55

Conference Standings (Eastern, only those who'd make playoffs as of current standings, *: division leaders)

1 Ottawa Senators 70/55*
2 Pittsburgh Penguins 67/55*
3 Carolina Hurricanes 58/57*
4 Montréal Canadiens 67/55
5 Philadelphia Flyers 65/54
6 New Jersey Devils 64/55
7 New York Rangers 62/58
8 Boston Bruins 61/54

Forever Pittsburgh Penguins, go for the Stanley Cup! Dicksucker Philadelphia Cryers!


Euro Ice Hockey Challenge Results

Tilburg, Netherlands

Hungary came without their best players (Szuper, Vas J., Vas M., Szélig, Ladányi, Palkovics, Ocskay) in order to test the 3rd and 4th line, and some new young players. The results so far are not bad.

Ukraine-Hungary 6-2 (okay against an A group level team)
Netherlands-Croatia 1-0 (surprisingly narrow win)

Ukraine-Croatia 8-0 (easy as expected)
Netherlands-Hungary 0-3 (good away win for Hungary with this not-its-best squad)

BÖFF!