Friday, May 2, 2008

WC08: Heatley kicks Slovenia's ass

(AFP/Timothy A. Clary)

In Canada's opening match against Slovenia, Dany Heatley scored three goals and added an assist en route to a 5-1 ker-smooshing of the small south-central European republic. He assisted on the first goal, scored the second--which turned out to be the winner--as well as the fourth and fifth goals. Heatley is now Canada's all-time leading scorer in the annual World Championship tournaments after surpassing Marcel Dionne. As a Sens fan, I hope he doesn't score any more after this year due to consistently long playoff runs for the Senators.

The story of the game might have been Slovenian goaltender Robert Kristan, who faced 65 shots on the night, including 31 in the second period alone.

Anze Kopitar, the only Slovenian to ever play in the NHL, scored the only goal on Canada goaltender Cam Ward.

I didn't actually see the game, so I don't know how well Jason Spezza did. He didn't get any points, but that doesn't necessarily mean he played poorly. Watch SportsCentre for highlights.

Canada's next game is Sunday afternoon at 3:30 versus Latvia. It should be another win for Canada, but will be exciting nonetheless--apparently a lot of Latvian fans made the trip across the ocean to see the tournament.
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