Everything is silent today at the Russian morning skate, the players are full with self confidence, and you even see something you haven´t seen in previous competitions, a smile on some playrs faces.
"It is very different from the past olympics or world championships I played",said a guy who shouldknow, Slava Fetisov and continued "We haven´t had many time to laugh or talk through a skate, I am happy that is over now, and as we see we can also play when having fun doing it, it was a great move to get Mitch D here, he works good and still has some kind of fun while doing so."
Of course former soviet teams ruled the past olympics and world hockey scene, but will they have a shot this time ?

"It will be harder, thats for sure" commented captain Igor Larionov,"for now we try to get that important 3-0 lead against Poland, we can go in the last game(s) more relaxed than. The competition is very hard now, we know that. We have all the tools, but we also have lost some veterans over the last view years.Especially our goalies, they are good but unproven, we have no Roy, Richter or Hasek in net unfortunatly. We wwork very much with Irbe and Khabibulin, I think they will make their way, in 2-3 years they will be top goalies."

Mitch also was available for some comments "It is great to work with those guys. It is so simple, you just tell them which line they are on, and that is almost it, they are so creative out there, it is simply fun to watch."

Russia will face Poland now. They are up 2-0 in this series and now 8-0-0 in the tourney.