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.

May 1

Today we play Slovenia. They won their group in the Pool B World Championships and got the opportunity to move up and play in the A pool this year.

Slovenia also didn't win in its first three games, just like us. This was our first meeting against Slovenia so we didn't know too much about them except what we learned from our pre-game meeting and watching them on video.

Warmup was an interesting experience as the stands were full of school children all cheering for Japan. They all had hand-made flags and signs and never stopped chanting "Let's go Japan." It was pretty amazing to have the whole crowd cheering for you, kind of like the feeling I had at the Nagano Olympics where the atmosphere was unbelievable.

In all the World Championships I have been in, not too many people know about our team but as we play a few games and get some respect, more and more fans come to watch and support us. I guess that's why they have these tournaments in different countries each year -- to showcase how hockey is growing all over the world.

The first period didn't go as we had hoped, with Slovenia scoring two power-play goals early and one more late to finish the period up 3-0. We had some chances but couldn't put the puck in the net.

The second started much the same, with Slovenia getting a power-play goal early to make it 4-0 then we started to come on. We got two quick goals around the middle of the period from Takahito Suzuki and Ryan Fujita. Then, as we pressured more and started to take control of the game, Yosuke Kon was hit from behind and hit the boards, knocking one of his front teeth out. Slovenia was assessed a major penalty and we went on the power play for the last five minutes of the period.

Taro Nihei scored on the power play to make it 4-3 and the charge was on. We needed those goals to get us going and we finished the second period strong.

The third period was our best as we played most of the time in their zone, getting chance after chance but not being able to score. Their goalie stood on his head, making all kinds of saves and denying us the tying goal. Then we scored one on the power play, only to have the goal called back by the ref. He said our player was inside the crease and he had blown the whistle before the puck went into the net. It just seemed that we couldn't get any breaks at all.

In the last minute of the third period, we pulled our goalie to put on an extra player to try and tie it up. We got a great chance with Chris Yule and I getting a 2-on-1, but their goalie made a great save to keep the score 4-3 and that's how it ended.

It's always hard to lose when you play as well as we did but they had a hot goalie who stood on his head making great saves and sometimes that's all you need. We have a short turnaround as we play Italy tomorrow so we need to regroup and be ready to play.

May 7

Well, our last two games against Italy and Poland were unsuccessful as we weren't able to get a win. We lost 5-1 to Italy and 5-2 to Poland.

In each of these games though we played well, but our inexperience at that level of international hockey proved to be the deciding factor. The little mistakes cost us when we needed to get a break. In the Italy game, we played tough and skated well, but we got down a few goals and couldn't seem to make back any ground.

The Italian team is in the midst of a transition as a lot of its older players who are Canadian-Italians aren't playing for the national team any more. They haven't been able to get more Canadian-Italians to come over and play in Italy to qualify for their Italian passports.

In the Poland game, we faced a team which was much bigger than our team -- which is the case in most of these games -- but we always find a way to compete. Their team has a couple of NHL players with Mariusz Czerkawski from the New York Islanders and Krzysztof Oliwa of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Even though we might not have gotten the results we were hoping for in these games, they are all important as they give us the much-needed experience we require to make Team Japan as competitive as we can be. There were three of our players who were selected as the top three on the team for the tournament -- Chris Yule, Ryan Fujita and Takayuki Kobori.

Both Italy and Poland will be competing in the Pool B World Championships as they needed to finish 13th or better to qualify for next year's Pool A tournament in Finland. Team Japan gets a spot in the tournament because the rules say there must be a team from Asia represented. To earn that spot, we must play teams from China and Korea and win those games for the right to represent Asia at the World Championships. The other way for us to get in without going through the Asian qualification is to finish 14th or better in the tournament which, of course, is our goal.

I talked to a lot of reporters and players on other teams after we finished our last games and they all said pretty much the same things; that Japan has come a long way since we started in the A pool in 1998. We have improved a lot since our first tournament and I think we're on the cusp of winning a few games in the A pool. People are impressed by the way we compete and always play hard to the end of the game. Even if we are down by two or five goals, the guys always put out 110 percent. The fans love to see that passion for the game and that's what inspires them the most when they see us play.

Well, that pretty much wraps up our tournament this year in Sweden. I didn't get to write the news that I really wanted to, which was that Team Japan had won its first game ever in Pool A, but maybe that will happen next year. Our big tournaments coming up next year are the Asian qualifiers and the Asian Winter Games, which will be in Aomori Prefecture.

I just want to thank all the fans in Japan for their continued support. Cheers, Kuwie