Worlds 2008

Division IA:

Poland
Kazakhstan
GB
Netherlands
Korea

Team GB has been drawn into another tough group for next years world championships tournament. Looking at it at this very, very early stage before the number one seed has been relegated from the top league. Kazakhstan are the stand-out team and will probably be one of the favourites to be right up there looking for promotion to join up with the major hockey nations. Any result against them will be a bonus. Saying that though Poland were the team that dented the Kazakh's promotion hopes this year by defeating them 5-2. The French took full advantage of that result and topped the Group A table. The Poles though also struggled to narrow one goal victories over Estonia and The Netherlands. So the Poles who have players based in the top leagues of the Czech Republic (Trinec), Slovakia (Lipt. Mik) and Germany (Hamburg Freezers) will provide a strong challenge to the Brits and they will be a danger once again to the Kazakhs. We shouldn't take the game against them lightly but if we play to our best and keep the concentraion levels up we could spring a surprise result. Anyway looking at the other results from this years Division 1 Group A tournament the Dutch match up could also prove to be tricky fixture for the British squad. They gave up plenty of goals but they also managed to score two or more goals in each of their games, including a 9-3 blow out against a truly weak Chinese squad. The Dutch might provide some offensive threat to our D. So i'm thinking the Dutch match up will be the most important game of our campaign (you heard it here first). Being positive it could be a bronze medal deciding fixture if things go our way.
Then on to the Korean's who won every game of their division II championships. They beat the likes of Australia, Iceland, Israel and the mighty hockey nation that is Mexico to gain promotion. Iam pretty sure the rest of Div I will be more than capable of defeating the Koreans they will be the whipping boys of the group that will dive straight backdown to the lower division they came from. The Koreans will be the security blanket we might just need to stay in the division.