USA Men's Wins FIRS World Championship Gold

[Defense1st]

USA 5
Canada 4

Canada had a 2-0 and 3-1 lead but US perservered and made the comeback; Congratulations to Dustin Roux, Jon Mosenson, Johnny MacGuiness, Travis Fudge, Brandon Barnette, Danny Mamorstein and the rest of the team.....Great Job, Boys!

[FAUplayer]

Was George Brown there to sing the Star Spangled Banner ?

[quick_dry]

absolute cracker of a game to end the tournament with - especially with all the shots and tight play around the net in the last 27 seconds.

I haven't seen it posted that Dave Hammond's goal in the gold medal game was a michigan from behind the back of the net into the top glove side.

3 things ran through my head - 1. !@#$% what a goal!!! 2. was it below the crossbar and legal? 3. will anyone whine that this sort of stuff doesn't belong in hockey?

[JLambertUMSL]

Wish they'd hurry up and post the video.

[Jon Mosenson]

Hey guys thanks for the congrats, We really appreciate the support. Incase you are curious a friend of mine found a website where you can view some of the games we played. check them out!! www3.rollersports.tv If you have trouble with it let me know.

[NC Mustangs]

Congratulations to Team USA! Great video footage of the games in Italy.

[JLambertUMSL]

Sweet, the championship game is finally up! Can't wait to watch it tonight.

[Mlrhnorthfan]

Congrats to Jon and the rest of the team!


The US women also won the Gold, beating Czech 3-1.


The US Junior mens team brought home the bronze as well.



Great showing for the USA!

[quick_dry]

The womens Czech v Canada semifinal was a heartbreaker like last years grand-final, czechs winning against the run of play in OT (I think it was triple OT this time)

Hopefully the proposed changes to the tournament format will pass and be used next year:

1. the small pools and lack of stability in teams attending and team quality outside the Top 8 made promotion/relegation weird. e.g. this year the best 3 teams in bottom 8 were all in the same pool. It is proposed to use bigger pools and play everyone so you can get a better measure of the top 2 teams to promote.

2. change to a "For and Against" rather than just "Goals against". This year was the year of "How to make roller hockey boring", as soon as teams got a couple of goals up in round robin play they'd just hold it behind the net and kill off the clock. if the other team didn't think they'd get the win (or really need the win to avoid relegation) they'd just wait it out. e.g. Canada v France - I think it was close to 6 minutes spent with canada rolling around in their own end, not even looking to advance, and france sitting boxed up in their end limiting damage - they weren't going to get enough to win, so more goals for were no help, but goals against would kill them. borrrrrrrrring.

3. minimum requirements for fair and reasonable access to the rink for training time - not "45 minutes allocated, nothing else... except Italy who can have it whenever it isn't being used". We found a rink near Como, but the heat caused such expansion the surface had huge ripples you had to saucer the puck over.

[JLambertUMSL]

Never mind, video doesn't work.

edit: yes it does: ftp://files.cdconsult.it/pub/USA-CANADA.wmv.

[nummer55]

Hey quick_dry, sure you're not talking about USA vs France? That wasn't pretty.

[quick_dry]

nah, it was pretty much every team - but that game was the big'un.

Canadian Juniors started it off killing off the last 2 minutes or so of a period - felt sorry for the ref, it was a delayed penalty IIRC. Off the goalie went and they just sat behind the goal for 2 minutes. I felt sorta bad that the teams doing it were getting booed because strategically I really appreciated it, but it was damn boring.

Oh, and another 'boo hiss' to the organisors who'd chop everyone's anthem off at the 30-40 second mark - except Italy. 'Cheers' to all the countries who sang their anthem - we got a perverse kick out of belting out ours after they'd chopped the music. It was good to see it catch on with more and more teams doing it as the 2 tournaments went on. The Finnish girls said they kept playing the Estonian anthem instead of the Finnish one. 'Cheers' to the rink food in the tents, and blondie that was doing the serving

I wonder when the Czechs are going to evolve a game style where they can beat the French, that really tight box the Frogs run just killed the Czechs, completely destroyed their game - yet against other teams they look great and were the tournament favourites going in (so long as they could avoid the french enroute to the finals)

nummer55: was that you with the little netbook and twitter open all the time? it had rounded corners, and I think normally sitting towards the front of the stands in the middle or near the cafe?

[Mlrhnorthfan]

I also thought the chopping of the national anthems was in really poor taste.


on the play side I do not have a problem with the way the teams played, at least from the women's side.

Roller hockey should be a possession game.

The US played most of all of their games in the other teams zone with possession while the defending team played a box to minimize damage. when another team would get an offensive chance, the US would take the rebound or turnover behind the net and reset their breakout.

Czech played run and gun and outskated everyone, then got to the finals against the US and couldnt touch the puck.

thats how roller hockey is won, puck control. until other teams realize it, they will not consistently win against the US.

[RichardGraham]

Hi Matt,

Inline hockey may be a possession game, but when winning becomes the only object, and all thought for sportsmanship, courage and the spectators watching the game is thrown out the window, the best team will stand behind its own net for all but one minute of play, and then go down and score to win the game with a few ticks on the clock. Yay! Those guys are the champs! And the rest of us watching are chumps.

I know I'm simplifying, but to me, inline hockey is run and gun -- along with great defense. I do not wish to watch a sport where the only object is not to lose. If you wish to see inline hockey as a professional sport, or in the Olympics one day, rewarding teams that can hold a one-goal lead by holding the puck behind their own net for minutes at a time, to my mind, is absolutely ridiculous. Why do you think pro basketball has a 24-second rule?

I'd like to see a rule put in place that if you don't move the puck forward within a certain time frame, it's a delay-of-game penalty.

Call me crazy, but watching a team defend a one-goal lead by not letting go of the puck is not sport, it's something much, much worse.

[sbutler]

Call me crazy, but watching a team defend a one-goal lead by not letting go of the puck is not sport, it's something much, much worse.

Hi Richard,

I agree with a lot of the tings i've read from you over the years, but in this instance i disagree slightly and wanted to play devils' advocate.

I agree that it can be boring to watch a team defend a one goal lead, but i feel if they have that one goal lead, it's their right to choose how to execute their game plan in order to have that same lead or greater by the end of the game.

Roller hockey is a fast and intense sport, it doesn't have turnover after a number of possessions, nor limits on how long a team can hold the puck, or where they can hold it, nor does it say the puck must be in forward motion. In which case I think a team can defend how they choose.

Again, i'll point out that it can be boring to watch, I agree, and I've never tried to defend a lead like that. But i don't think that warrants a rule to say you can't defend a lead of your own making.

Now, how about the team who are losing. It's surely their prerogative to hussle and chase and create a turnover! Why punish the team with the lead, by saying you can't do x or y, you have to give the other team a chance?!

That is where it could get exciting. The trailing team skating hard to create a turnover. if it's even strength, everyone cover a man and it shouldn't take too long.

Furthermore, if a team is intent on converging behind their net to defend a lead, the onus is surely partly on the trailing team to devise a strategy to attack the puck carrier, no? this could be worked on beforehand, and i'm surprised it's not something that gets worked on at such a level. Time is spent on breakouts, forechecking.. it's not too hard to come up with some plays to forecheck a guy behind te net, whilst trying to stop them breakingout.

Ok, so say a rule is implemented to say you must enter the attacking zone. Would you feel more comfortable if a team kept possession in the attacking zone? Is that more sporting? Will there be a shot clock forcing them to shoot? They may not want to risk shooting, giving up a rebound and a turnover.

This next comment will make me sound like a dink (playing devils advocate remember), but to point out how silly i thought it to say, 'it's not sporting' heaven forbid a team with a lead tries to score more goals, now that's not giving the other tema a chance to win! ;o)

I know what you mean when you said they try "not to lose" as opposed to winning, but in reality they are trying to win. Either way I wouldn't like rules put in place, in my favourite sport to say you can't do this, you have to go there, and you've only got so long to do it.