2008 World Ice Hockey Championship (Canada)

Could you elaborate on this? As far as I know, "a" cannot be a connecting vowel... and they are written with a lowercase letter...

This is a matter of language. In Russian, it's written as "belorussy," and in Belarusian, it's "belarusy." Forcing those who write in Russian to write "belarusy" is like forcing people to write the word "Chinese" using hieroglyphs.

Regarding the topic. Our team did well, of course. But the game while playing with fewer players showed that this aspect needs to be worked on. There's still time before the playoffs, and I think the coaches will take this into account.
And another thing. For the second consecutive World Championship, our NHL superstars are surprising me. Ovechkin, Kovalchuk... two of the best snipers in the NHL, but they can't score for the national team. What's the problem? Are they being forced to play in an unfamiliar style? We expect miracles from them every year, but the leaders of the national team are players from the Russian championship. Morozov is great!
The Czechs don't have this problem; if Elias is an NHL superstar, he's also a leader on the national team. And if you remember what Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman, Messier, and Sakic did at the World Championships in their time, it becomes even more confusing.
By the way, Dallas won against San Jose. We're waiting for Nabokov.