Exhibition play in the IIHF Women's Hockey World Championship began this past week. The games that count will begin this afternoon.

Senior forward Tammy Shewchuk and junior forward Jennifer Botterill are playing for the Canadian National Team. Junior defenseman Angela Ruggiero and A.J. Mleczko '99, now listed as a defenseman, are representing USA Hockey.

In its exhibition opener last week , Canada destroyed Finland, 8-1. Shewchuk assisted on the Canadians' second goal. Dartmouth defenseman Correne Bredin netted Canada's fourth goal in the first period.

The Canadians defeated Germany 5-0 in their second exhibition matchup. The game remained tied at the first intermission, even though the Canadians outshot the Germans 21-4 in the period. But a four-goal outburst in the second, the last of which was scored by Shewchuk, ended any German threat. Botterill assisted on the Canadians' lone goal in the fifth.

In the American corner, Team U.S.A. posted a 9-0 win over Russia and a 11-1 thrashing of Sweden. The Swedes actually led the contest for seven minutes, as Maria Rooth--the Minn.-Duluth forward who earned Frozen Four MVP honors last week--scored unassisted 3:18 into the game. The Americans went on to score the next 11 goals.

The championships officially begin today, with the U.S. playing Germany at 8:30 ET at St. Cloud. Canada will play Kazakhstan in Rochester at the same time.

The two teams are in separate four team pools. Round-robin games will be played today, tomorrow, and Thursday. The tournament semifinals will be on Saturday.

All U.S. hockey games will broadcast over the Internet on www.whrb.org. The Gold Medal Game, which has always been U.S. vs. Canada, will be broadcast live at 7:00 ET on 95.3 WHRB.