*Among the eight coaches in St. Catharines, six are returning and two new (Canada’s Lisa Haley and Sweden’s Ylva Lindberg). As well, of the eight, four are men (CZE, FIN, RUS, USA) and four are women (CAN, FRA, SUI, SWE).

*Left-shooting players dominate this year’s WW18. Some 111 of 158 registered skaters shoot left (70 per cent), but the team-by-team breakdown reveals several oddities. Consider that the North Americans are usually evenly split between left and right shots, but this year while Canada fits that stat (10 and 10), the U.S. curiously has only four lefties and 16 right shots. In Europe, the numbers are overwhelmingly left, particularly Finland and Russia which have 19 lefties and only one right shooter, and Sweden with 18 and two. Again, for reasons unknown, the French are near Canada with 11 left and 8 right. Switzerland is 15-5 left-right and the Czechs 15-4.

*It’s now official. Russian goalie Valeria Tarakanova has tied two WW18 records and set two others. She had tied the record for most WW18 tournaments by a goalie (three, with countrywoman Nadezhda Morozova), as well as most WW18 wins (five, held by six others). She has set records for most games played—13 and counting—and most minutes played—646:08 and counting.

*Seven of the eight team captains are returning players. The only exception is Sweden’s 16-year-old rookie Solveig Neunzert.

*There has yet to be an overtime or penalty-shot shootout. Only once, the inaugural event in 2008, has that happened before.

*There have been two misconduct penalties assessed (2+10) but no five-minute majors, no game misconducts, and no suspensions of any sort.

*We are currently at 23,558 fans for 15 games, an average of 1,570 per game. Both of these numbers easily surpass previous WW18 events, and with six (possibly seven) games still to be played, the final tally will exceed 30,000 and could hit 35,000, incredible numbers for an event in only its ninth year.

*Teams are averaging more than six goals a game, which is a healthy number, but on the down side there is the “binary problem”—the losing team has been held to zero or one goal in 12 of 15 games, pointing to the need for greater parity still.