France and Belarus are Kazakhstan's main rivals in World Hockey Championship

France and Belarus will be the main rivals for Kazakhstan in the World Hockey Championship, Tengrinews.kz reports. 'We have a goal – to keep a place in the Elite Division. So, we will play against Belorussian and French teams. We will concentrate on defense during trainings prior to the Championship. If we build up on our previous experience of recent matches, where we could win, but lost eventually, the most important thing for us would be to better defend our own gates,” Andrey Shayanov, Kazakhstan national hockey team coach said. He also added that the major part of the team has already started training under his guidance. There are 25 field hockey players and three goalkeepers in the team. Shayanov also commented on NHL Winnipeg player Nikolay Antropov: “We have send an invitation letter to him, however, we haven't received an answer yet. He hasn't refused, but he hasn't agreed on our offer either.” Kazakhstan national team will get trained in Astana and then will travel to Italy. There it will play three trial matches against Italian team. According to Vitally Kolesnik, this is not enough: “It is not enough to get prepared prior to the Championship. We need to play 5-6 matches. As for the new format of the Championship – it is difficult to say whether it would be easier to play or not. We will play and then we'll find it out. We'll try very hard to keep our place in the elite division.” You can learn more about the Kazakhstan national hockey team's list of players who will participate in the World Championship on May 4-20, 2012, both in Finland and Sweden here. The Kazakhstan team coached by Andrey Shayanov will play against Finland, Canada, the U.S., Switzerland, Slovakia, Belarus and France in A group.