QUEBEC CITY – On Thursday night, the non-game day for the players competing for the World Championship, the hockey magic was provdided by hockey legends from around the world, as World Stars took on Team Gazprom, the world's largest gas extractor in a a remake of a similar game during the 2007 World Championship in Moscow.

Led by former Quebec Nordiques player Valery Kamensky, Team Gazprom took a 7-4 lead in the third period, but the World Stars found an extra gear, and came back to tie the game.

Team Gazprom claimed the victory in a penalty shootout when Gazprom vice president and president of SKA St. Petersburg Alexander Medvedev beat Bob Farrelly, and all three World Stars - Jim Bassille, and IIHF Hall of Fame inductees Angela James and Cammi Granato - got stopped by Maxim Mikhailovsky.

“I think everybody was happy, and the fans in the stands were very happy,” said Kamensky after the game.

“It’s a good experience, it’s nice to see good friends, and being back in Quebec has been a lot of fun. I have so many memories of the team, and how the club took care of me and supported me. I had a lot of injuries when I was here. It was a little emotional to be back,” he said.

Flying down the Colisée ice, Kamensky was facing Esa Tikkanen – best known for his five Stanley Cup victories with the Edmonton Oilers and the New York Rangers – just like 21 years ago when the NHL All Stars took on the Soviet Union in a two-game challenge, Rendez-vous ‘87, in Quebec City. Then, Kamensky got three points in two games. On Wednesday, he scored a hat trick.
Tikkanen, then playing on a line with Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri, was playing in defence now.

"It was great, and it was fun to tie the game there," he said with his trademark grin after the game.

The game was serious enough for Tikkanen to decline a hotdog he was offered in the first intermission. "After the game," he yelled as he headed back to the ice.

"Playing hockey is the best thing I know. My career began as the mascot of the Jokerit Helsinki team, and playing is still always fun. As is meeting all these great friends," he said.

The game was officiated by IIHF President and former referee René Fasel, and by former NHL referee and Quebec Nordiques player Paul Stewart, who sported a Nordiques jersey under his striped one.

Cammi Granato had a memorable night as well, as her linemates were her husband, Ray Ferraro, and brother Tony Granato.

RISTO PAKARINEN


Scoring:
03:21 1-0 Doug Brown (Esa Tikkanen)
07:00 2-0 Glenn Anderson (Vladimir Malakhov)
08:25 2-1 Valeri Kamensky
15:33 2-2 Igor Boriskov
18:23 3-2 Ray Ferraro (Brown, Cammi Granato)
23:07 3-3 Dmitri Teplyakov (Evgeny Chizimin, Igor Boriskov)
35:10 3-4 Kamensky (Pavel Zimakov)
36:17 3-5 Lev Berdichevskiy (Ravil Yakubov)
36:44 3-6 Chizimin (Vladimir Lutchenko)
39:17 4-6 Glenn Anderson
44:47 4-7 Kamensky
45:29 5-7 Michel Goulet (Brown, C. Granato)
47:35 6-7 Mats Naslund (penalty shot)
50:25 7-7 Brown (Patrick Roy, Raimo Helminen)

Penalty shootout
Jim Bastille – no goal
Alexander Medvedev - goal
Cammi Granato - no goal
Vladimir Torzhkov - no goal
Angela James - no goal