HabsWorld.net -- 

Beginning Saturday, April 30th, and ending on May 15th, the 2005 IIHF World Hockey Championships will be taking place in Vienna and Innsbruck, Austria.  The Montreal Canadiens will be represented well, with no fewer than 9 members of the organization set to participate.  We will be tracking those players, as well as current UFA Alexei Kovalev (RUS), who most recently played with the Canadiens.  Furthermore, Hamilton C Antti Miettinen has been named to Team Finland as a reserve player.  Here is the breakdown of who is playing where:

Belarus: W Mikhail Grabovsky, W Andrei Kostitsyn
Canada: D Sheldon Souray
Denmark: C Kim Staal
Slovakia: W Marcel Hossa*, D Rene Vydareny, W Richard Zednik
Russia: W Alexei Kovalev, D Andrei Markov
Switzerland: D Mark Streit

*-Hossa started the tournament on the roster, was deleted after game 2, but was re-added and played in their last 2 games.

Despite this high representation, there are still several other Habs and current Canadiens prospects who are eligible, but are not playing in this tournament, for various reasons.  They are:

Canada: G Jose Theodore, declined invitation
Czech Republic: C Radek Bonk, C Tomas Plekanec, not invited, W Jan Bulis, injured
Finland: C Saku Koivu, injured
France: G Cristobal Huet, team relegated in ‘B’ pool
Latvia: W Raitis Ivanans, not invited
Russia: W Alexander Perezhogin, attended training camp, injured
Sweden: (UFA) W Andreas Dackell, W Niklas Sundstrom, not invited
USA: D Francis Bouillon, D Mike Komisarek, not invited

Be sure to check HabsWorld.net daily for up-to-date stats and information from the 2005 IIHF World Championships.