Hungary continues to surprise in the early stages of the preparations for the World Championship in Switzerland. Tonight, Hungary beat Norway, last year's quarterfinalists 4-3 after penalty shootout. In Rødovre, Copenhagen, a young Danish B-team won easily 4-0 over Japan which travel to Vilnius, Lithuania for the IHWC Div. IA in a few days.

Hungary - Norway 4-3 SO (0-1, 3-1, 0-1, 0-0, 1-0)
6 April 2009, Budapest, Att: 2,000
0-1 10:58 Mats Zuccarello Olsen (Morten Ask)
1-1 23:02 Andras Horvath (Marton Vas, Balazs Ladanyi) PP2
2-1 25:01 Balazs Ladanyi (Marton Vas) PP1
3-1 36:56 Daniel Koger (Balazs Ladanyi, Levente Szuper)
3-2 39:07 Andreas Martinsen (Stefan Espeland, Per-Åge Skrøder)
3-3 56:22 Mats Zuccarello Olsen (Morten Ask, Stefan Espeland)
4-3 65:00 SO Daniel Koger
HUN 6x2, NOR 10x2, SOG 27:31 (9:9, 10:9, 7:12, 0:1, 1:0)

HUN: Szuper; Horvath, Tokaji;J. Vas - Palkovics - Fekete; Sille, Svasznek; Peterdi - M. Vas - Ladanyi; Ondrejcik, Kangval, Benk - Haloczy - Fodor; Ennaffati, Szelig, Kiss - Nagy - Safron; Borbas.
NOR: Grotnes, T. Jakobsen, Ma. Trygg, Thoresen - M. Hansen - Skrøder; Kaunismäki, Myrvold; Laumann Ylven - Mats Z. Olsen - Ask; Östli, Rindal; Wehn - Forsberg - Skadsdammen; Espeland, Hesbrathen - Martinsen - K.A. Olimb.

Gamesheet: http://www.regi.icehockey.hu/magyar/jk2+.php?mit=2474

Another promising result for Hungary as the Norwegian team they beat tonight (even if it was only in SO) featured many core players of the team that will play in Switzerland in late April and in May. Strong evidence that Hungary does indeed have A-pool level. 

Denmark - Japan 4-0 (0-0, 2-0, 2-0)
6 April 2009, Rødovre, Att: 2,584
1-0 27:37 Nichlas Hardt (Alexander Sundberg, Philip Larsen)
2-0 29:13 Jesper Jensen (Morten Lie, Tobias Kisum)
3-0 41:34 Nichlas Hardt (Michael Eskesen, Morten Andreasen)
4-0 54:59 Michael Eskesen (Tobias Kisum, Jesper Jensen) PP1 (4-on-3)
DEN 4x2 + 1x5, JAP 7x2, SOG 37:21 (11:5, 14:10, 12:6)

DEN: Nørbak; Hersby, P. Larsen (2), Oldendow-Larsen, Hentze, M. B. Christensen, Damgaard, K. Pedersen (2), Eskesen; J. Jensen, Smidt (2), Starkov, R. Olsen, J. Henriksen, Kisum, M. Andreasen, O. Gunnarsson, A. Sundberg, Lie, Hardt (7).
JAP: Haruna; Miyachi, Kawai (2), Ogawa - Kon (2) - Kamino; Keller, Yamashita, Kuji (2) - Tetsuya Saito - Takahito Saito (2); Kawashima, Haga, Shigeno - Tanaka - Suzuki (2); Minami, Obara - Iimura (4) - Nishiwaki.

Official gamesheet: http://www.al-bankligaen.dk/gamesheet.aspx?GameId=14896

Good result for a very young and unexperienced Danish squad. Nikolaj Nørbak, who turns only 19 tomorrow, was steller in the net in his debut match for the A-team (got a shutout and was honoured as DEN's best player), and Jesper Jensen, another debutant, made a goal and a assist in his debut too. The Danish lineup featured 6 debutants. As reported here as little as 4 players of the players that played tonight (absent Simon Nielsen and Julian Jakobsen) are locked in for the IHWC. The rest of the squad competes for 2-3 spots in the final IHWC roster so the competition is fierce.