Team Canada general manager Steve Yzerman added seven more names to his roster for the world hockey championship that begins a little more than a week from now in Moscow.

Joining Eric Brewer, Dwayne Roloson, Rick Nash, Shane Doan and Mike Cammalleri are a quartet of Hurricanes in Cam Ward, Eric Staal, Justin Williams and Mike Commodore, as well as Barret Jackman (as predicted), Jamal Mayers and Jason Chimera.

When I was in Washington last weekend, I had a chance to talk about the tournament a little bit with the Capitals who were heading over. The most excited player, by far, was Alex Ovechkin, who is going to get a chance to showcase his skills in his hometown in a big-ticket international tournament for the first time. Fellow Russian, Alex Semin, will be joining him on the team.

Other Capitals I confirmed as going include captain Chris Clark, Brian Pothier (both USA), Milan Jurcina (Slovakia) and Jiri Novotny (Czech Republic). I'm not sure about Olaf Kolzig playing for Germany, however.

Pothier said it was his first time ever playing for his country, which is hard to believe given some of the motley crews the Americans send to some of these tournaments.

The nine countries rounding out the field this year (minus the obvious seven) include: Austria, Belarus, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Switzerland and the Ukraine.

The 2008 tournament will take place in Halifax and Quebec City.