Ryan Kuwabara is a key member of Japan's national ice hockey team currently playing at the Pool A World Championships in Sweden. Kuwabara, a Japanese-Canadian who was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens and now stars for Japan Ice Hockey League champion Kokudo, has agreed once again to keep a journal chronicling some of the team's experiences.

First of all, I would like to thank The Japan Times and the sports department for this opportunity to bring all the news from our team at the World Championships in Sweden to all the hockey fans back in Japan.

Well, we've been in Europe for about eight days now. Last weekend, we had some tune-up games against the Latvian national team. These games are great for us because they give us a chance to work on building some structure for our systems as most of us have played on different teams throughout the year.

Our first game didn't start off so well as Latvia got two quick goals in the first period. In the second, we came back to even the score at two goals apiece.

Unfortunately for me, on the same shift that I scored the first goal, I got cut for a few stitches. Arggghh!!!, but more about that later. In the third period, we were able to get a goal, play well defensively and win the game 3-2.

Now, on to the stitches story. What a drama getting a few stitches can turn out to be. I don't think the doctor who did the stitches was a real doctor. So after I scored the goal, I went to the medical room to get zipped up, as they say, figuring I would need about four stitches to close the cut properly. But the guy only put in two and with the wrong thread size so, needless to say, one of the stitches pulled through so I had to go back after the game.

Once I got back to the medical room, I told the doctor that he needed to re-do the stitches and I don't think he was too happy about me telling him what to do. I wanted the old ones taken out and the right thread size used and the right amount of stitches to close the wound tightly. So I thought he took them out and re-did them right, but he cut one and only added one to replace the one that he took out.

Like I said, maybe he didn't like me telling him what to do. So, back to the hotel to check out his work and I was a little upset at what I saw. He had left the stitch that was cut still in the wound so our trainer and myself removed the old stitches and put on some special tape for cuts to close the wound.

My advice: Don't get stitches in Latvia if you can avoid it.

I think we were a little tired from the first game as we lost the next one 5-1. Not bad for our first two exhibition games.

On to the World Championships. Our first game was against Germany, a team we played at the Nagano Olympics. We lost that game so we were looking to improve on that result this time.

Leading up to the game, we have our regular practices and meetings to prepare our game plan for the Germans. These consist of watching videos of our penalty killing, power play and breakouts followed by watching for things to expect from our opponents.

On game day, usually all the guys stretch, ride the bike or whatever each individual's pregame routine is. Before the drop of the puck, we had a little pump-up meeting as we went around the room asking each guy who they would dedicate the game to. The answers varied from playing for the guys on the team, to families, the fans back in Japan and for the pride of Japan.

The first period wasn't our best as the Germans scored two quick goals in the first five minutes. Not the start we were hoping for but a hockey game is played for 60 minutes. So, that's how the first period ended.

The second started like the first with them getting two goals in the first five minutes again. After that, we changed our goalie looking to spark the team. That seemed to give us a boost as we rallied back with goals from Chris Yule and Takahito Suzuki.

After that, everything kind of went downhill and the second period ended 7-2.

The third period was our best one as we seemed more relaxed and just played hard. We had more scoring chances and limited the German chances. They still got two more goals on the power play and the game finished 9-2 -- definitely not what we were hoping for but that happens sometimes.

We should learn from the mistakes we made in this game, and we'd better learn fast. Our next game is against the Czechs and they always have a strong team. This year, they have maybe the best player in the world with them -- Jaromir Jagr. It will be a tough one but our team always fights and plays to the end, so you never know and upsets do happen.

I know our Japanese fans here in Sweden will be cheering for us and I hope all you fans back in Japan will do the same.