Victoria Cup

There is some pretty neat news coming out of the IIHF today. The IIHF announced that they are creating a new hockey tournament, the Victoria Cup, that would feature two teams from the European Champions Cup and one NHL team. Its set to kickoff in September, 2008. From what I can tell, the NHL team will not be a "Dream Team", but a regular NHL team.

The IIHF said it hoped the annual tournament, which would be played in Europe, would eventually include the Stanley Cup champion but initially the event would have a team other than the NHL champions taking part.

And this from IIHF President Rene Fasel:

"For over 35 years European fans have been asking the question how can European clubs match against an NHL team. Now we will have an NHL team coming to play for the Victoria Cup."

I would be curious to see this match as well, especially if they managed post-free agency to reassemble whichever team won the Stanley Cup that year and get them to participate. And its a great opportunity to watch the European passing game versus the NHL's dump and chase style. I hope Bettman works out a TV deal for it to be carried on this side of the pond.

Ovechkin suspended at Worlds

Alexander Ovechkin was rapped with a one-game suspension today by the disciplinary committee of the IIHF. Ovechkin is serving the suspension for putting a check from behind on Switzerland's Valentin Wirz during their match on Saturday. Wirz suffered a concussion, per Swiss coach Ralph Krueger. After the hit, Ovechkin was served with a five minute major and a game misconduct. He will miss Monday's Russia-Sweden game. Russian coach Vyacheslav Bykov had this to say:

"I've talked to Ovechkin and he said the hit wasn't intentional," Bykov told reporters.

Over the course of this season, Ovechkin has faced some controversy in the NHL over a couple hard hits. The infamous Briere hit that he was fined a thousand bucks for pops to mind. But as Ovechkin has said, none of his hits that are precieved as dirty are intentional, and the footage only proves that. As anyone who has watched Ovie play can tell you, he isnt a dirty player - he doesn't have to be to win (ahem, paging Sean Avery and Claude Lemieux). Realistically, that amount of on-ice intensity from a guy who is 6'2 and 200 pounds plus is going to lead to some hard hits. The IIHF widget at the top of the page has a blog about this from the crew in Russia.

UPDATE: Tarik El-Bashir has video of the hit here.