The report I heard last night was that Paul Kariya and the Ferraro brothers were officially named to the Canadian and US Junior National Teams for the WJC's. I didn't get the exact dates, but they did say that they would miss all three winter tournaments coming up for Maine: The Great Western Freezeout (19-20 Dec), The Cleveland Tournament [Name?] (29-30 Dec), and Maine's own Dexter Hockey Classic (2-3 Jan). That's a total of six games. As Lake Superior State is in two of those tournaments (Freezeout and Dexter), it should make for some interesting matchups. I feel that even without those three Maine is a very formidable team - but they're not the team Maine is when they're all in the lineup. I'd be interested in knowing how many players other teams are losing to the WJC's... On another note...this weekend's game for Maine are against Northeastern here at Alfond. Last I looked NE was (surprisingly to me at least) in second place in Hockey East. That's probably the good news for Maine fans. The bad news is that NE always (in my 8 years of watching) gives Maine fits - it will be particularly interesting to see how the young forwards do against the - how should I say this? - "touchy feely" style of NE. (Of course I haven't seen NE this year, they may be an entirely different style of team, and I may be completely wrong. But I've been wrong before - I'm used to it.) Good luck to everyone this weekend...Charlie ====================================================================== Charlie Slavin Mathematics in Maine "It's a great day for hockey." [log in to unmask] BOB JOHNSON 1931 - 1991 ======================================================================