Hello from high above the playing surface at the Ice Palace in Moscow!
After spending two weeks in the rather intimate 6,000-seat Yubileiny Arena in St. Petersburg, the glitz and glamour here in Moscow is definitely a cut above.
Here's a quick look at the sights around the exterior of the Ice Palace.
This arena is LOUD! And the energy was extraordinary when former Vancouver Canucks Sergei Shirokov gave Russia a 1-0 lead against Finland just 2:52 in the game.
I wondered if the Russians were capable of showing more firepower than any of the teams from Group B in the preliminary round, but the Finns weathered the storm, then took control with three unanswered goals in the second.
Carolina Hurricanes' prospect Sebastian Aho—who's also 18 and was a standout at World Juniors—has been the man for Finland so far, with two beautiful goals.
Patrik Laine laid out a great pass to Jussi Jokinen on the Finns' other marker. Clearly, he's not content to be outshone by Auston Matthews, who was the gamebreaker in Team USA's upset win over the Czechs in the quarterfinal.
Now that they have a comfortable-ish lead, I expect the Finns to be able to shut down Russia the rest of the way.
My journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow was more eventful than I would have liked. Most people, including the players, took the train, but I was booked to fly—and my ride didn't show up at the airport here in Moscow. I couldn't get on the Wifi at the airport because I couldn't understand the Login page, written in Cyrillic, but eventually cobbled together enough info to get myself on the high-speed train that left from the bowels of the airport and got me to downtown Moscow.
After three Metro transfers (only one in the wrong direction), and a hike of about 1km with all my luggage in the pouring rain (wearing only a sweater, with no umbrella), I managed to find my way to the hotel. Things have looked up since then.
I made it to the arena complex yesterday for a press conference for Pavel Bure's Legends Hockey League.
Part of the event was the launch of the brand new Hockey Museum here as part of the Ice Palace complex. The Legends League is trying to expand after a reasonably successful first season by adding American and Canadian teams going forward, and Lanny McDonald was on hand as head of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto—to offer his support for the museum and play for "Team World" in the game that followed the press conference.
The game was broadcast on the main Russian sports channel, and Pavel had a good game, playing on a line with Sergei Fedorov and Igor Larionov. With his helmet on, he still looks like the Pavel Bure of old.
I'll leave you for now with a couple of scene-sets from me for today's Canada/US semifinal.
Also,
click here, for my NHL.com story, which focuses more on McDavid vs. Matthews.
I'll leave it there for now, except to remind you that Chris Tanev is the only active Canuck still involved in the World Championship. I expect both Canadian Ben Hutton and American Thatcher Demko will continue their roles as benchwarmers when the puck drops in a couple of hours.
I did speak to Jacob Markstrom briefly after Canada's 6-0 quarterfinal win over Sweden, but there wasn't much to say. He stood in for a ton of Grade A scoring chances and didn't get any offensive support. It looked like a lot of the Canucks games we saw during 2015-16.
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