Olympic Hockey: Teams to Watch, Part 1

A few months back, I did two articles on possible Canadian and US Olympic hockey players you may need to know.

This time, it's time to meet the world. I'm going to talk about hockey olympians from some of the other countries that you may or may not know.

If you're a hockey fan you'll recognize some of these names. Some of you may shake your heads and say to yourself,"oh is that where he's from?".

In the next few articles, I'll spotlight teams from Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic,Russia,and in this part, the team that may surprise everybody, Slovakia. In addition, I'll talk about some US and Canadian Olympians, who weren't on my list.

The team from Slovakia will play in the premlinary around against teams from Latvia, Germany, and Austria.

If they survive that round, which I think they will, they'll be"lucky" enough to go onto the medal round to face Olympic hockey powerhouses such as Russia, Canada, US, Finland,Sweden, and the Czech Republic.

All the experts say they may not make it to the next round, but I remember when they said the same thing about a group of college hockey players playing for the US in 1980.

Without further adieu lets get to know Slovakia's Olympic hockey team.

Peter Bondra- Washington Capitals- "Bonzai" was born in the Ukraine, but asked to join Slovakia's team.

Zigmund Palffy-Los Angeles Kings - LA Kings' fans know number 33 as "Ziggy". Last year, he was the Kings' scoring leader.

Miroslav Satan-Buffalo Sabres- No, his name is not pronounced SAY-TAN,it's pronounced SHUH-TAN. No matter how you pronounce it, he was the Sabres' second leading scorer last year.

Michal Handzus- Phoenix Coyotes- He was part of the trade that sent Keith Tkachuk to the St.Louis Blues.

Zdeno Chara-Ottawa Senators- At six feet-nine inches tall(and that's WITHOUT skates!), he's one of the tallest players in the league.

Pavol Demitra-St.Louis Blues- In spite of missing part of last year with injuries, Pavol still was able to score 20 goals for the "blue note".

Josef Stumpel-Boston Bruins-Last year as an LA King, he was fourth on the team in scoring. He's now enjoying a resurgence with the team that first drafted him, the Boston Bruins.

Marian Hossa-Ottawa Senators. He was second in scoring on the Senators behind former teamate Alexei Yashin, who will be playing for Russia.

There you have them, some members of the Slovakian Olympic hockey team that you may need to know if you're a lover of Olympic hockey or just hockey in general,like me!

NEXT TIME: The defending Olympic hockey champions-The Czech Republic.