What does a victory mean for an International Organization? Or one that has a league of 360 youth players in the Middle East. Well in watching the Israel Men's National team win its first ever game in the B Pool with NTV crews seeing the historic sight of them winning their first game against the favoured Great Britain team 4 to 2 the possibilities are endless. The victory sets the table for growth to occur amongst the experience of a group of players who are at the World Men's Championship for the first time and who are the Coaches and leaders of that league in Israel. Just a tremendous moment to witness and be part of in the arena. On behalf of all the ISBHF family we congratulate you.
Our web broadcasts have been getting as many as 10,000 viewers from Europe and abroad daily. We anticipate that this will grow as we have all the teams vying for Gold. All our pools are going to be very interesting. And we have set the table along with the local organizers to have a unbelievable final few days of competition and play. To top it off we expect full crowds for our big games. And they have some great games to see. And I can tell you in Canada there is no crowd like a Newfoundland crowd. And we expect many full houses ahead.
Young defensemen have opened the eyes of people here at the 10th World Championship. Kudela of Czech Republic, Novis and Barbas of Greece, Ghilarducci and Stoico of Canada, Hildreth of the United States are some of the finest specimen of young defensemen we have seen at this level of the game for many years. Not to mention veteran players like Petrik the goalie of Slovakia and Medeiros the goalie of Portugal. These guys seem to be getting better with age.
At the women's level I was very impressed by the machine of the Slovakian girls. The pregame preparation and focus shows they are focussed and ready to defend their crown. Canada looked very good against arch-rival the Czech Republic and has a large following at Mount Pearl Glacier arena. Is anyone going to crack that Slovak vs Canada gridlock at the World level? This is the question to answer in the next 24 hours.
As of this moment 6 of the 7 B Pool teams still have important games to see who plays in the final games of the B Pool. Will we have a Caribbean cruise for the finals, or will Italy or Armenia make the final four. Or perhaps the speedy Hong Kong team, or tournament darling Israel. Big games lie ahead at all three levels and please tune in.
And in closing who can understand the mystery of the twitter following of UK player Johnny Tulip, and Fanny Deforges of Canada who now have fan clubs back in the UK. This I am told is exploding or trending as they say today.
One thing for sure the next 48 hours has the journey of winning 3 Golden fleeces in play. And as of this writing. 16 of 25 teams still have Golden aspirations.
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