The following is the game account by Jim Matheson in today's Edmonton
Journal:
 
SWEDES COME OUT SCORING
 
        "Hey, what was that number on the 50-50 Draw?" asked George
Kingston, the German national senior team coach.
        Kingston didn't pocket the $750 prize but that was the only way
anybody from the German delegation was leaving the Black Gold Centre [in
Leduc] with a smile Monday afternoon.
        In an entirely predictable finish, the Swedes bombed the Germans
10-2 on the first day of the world junior championship.
        If you'd seen the German dress rehearsals, you probably could
have written the storyline on this one on the way to the rink, sitting at
a few traffic lights.
        After all, the Germans had been crushed 7-0 by the Czechs and
10-0 by the Russians in dress rehearsals in Spruce Grove last week.  The
only salvation for the game but overmatched Germans was that they scored
after giving up 24 straight goals over almost eight periods.
        The Swedes, with 13 NHL drafted players, barely broke a sweat.
German goalie Oliver Hausler, who plays on the same Rosenheim club team
as Oiler Doug Weight, was bombarded with 49 shots; the Germans had only
15 on Jonas Forsberg.
        On a day when Swedish captain Jesper Mattson, Calgary's top pick
in '93, didn't get a point, little Anders Soderberg was the big gun.  He
scored three times, the last taking a cross-check to the head.
        Soderberg, the smallest player on the team at 158 pounds, hasn't
got a sniff from an NHL team but you'd never know it off the Boxing Day
show.  He only had two goals in the tournament last year but beat that in
two periods here Boxing Day....
        The Germans saw too much of Soderberg and just about everybody in
yellow...In the round robin format, with no playoffs and goal
differentials to decide medals, teams won't be calling off the dogs...
        How bad was it?  The Swedes scored on a 2x0 break while killing a
penalty in the third period...
        The Swedes scored three goals in the first three minutes of the
second to make it 5-zip.  After that, the only real question was whether
they'd hit double figures.  Fredrik Johansson, Per-Johan Axelson, Mattias
Ohlund, Anders Eriksson, Johan Davidsson, mathias Pihlstrom and Hohan
Finnstrom got the other goals.  Niklas Sundstrom, the Rangers' top draft
in '93 had three assists...
 
Arthur Berman  [log in to unmask]