In its second year of competition, Russia won the gold medal at the 1993 World Championships at Munich, Germany. Though his team finished fourth, Canada's Eric Lindros led the tournament in scoring and was voted to the all-star team.

Flames' minor-leaguer leads youthful squad after poor round-robin

CANADIAN PRESS

MUNICH - Goalie Andrei Trefilov reached for the top and got it.

"I have finally achieved what I wanted for three years," the Russian goalie said yesterday after he and his teammates beat Sweden 3-1 for the world hockey championship gold medal. "I'm very happy."

Trefilov, who played one NHL game for Calgary and spent the remainder of the season with the Flames' International Hockey League farm team, made all the difference, stopping 35 shots.

Boris Mikhailov, the Russian coach and a star on the powerful Soviet line with Vladimir Petrov and the late Valery Kharlamov in the 1970s, praised Trefilov afterward.

"Our goalie played so well," Mikhailov said. "We played real good defence. We're unbelievably happy. We're going to drink a lot of champagne tonight."

"The victory means a lot to me, even more than all the (world and Olympic) titles I collected as a player."

It was the first world title for Russia, which made its debut in last year's tournament but lost to Sweden 2-0 in the quarter-finals.

The former Soviet Union won a record 22 titles since 1954, the last in 1990.

The Russian team, its roster dominated by a bunch of young, hungry rookies, scored twice in the first period to take command.

German Titov, Andrei Nikolishin and Andrei Khomutov scored the Russian goals.

Khomutov finished with five goals and seven assists for second place behind Eric Lindros in scoring during the tournament.

Lindros, playing his first worlds had 11 goals and 17 points.

Lindros made the tournament's all-star team, voted by journalists, with Ulf Dahlen of Sweden and Renberg as wings; Ilya Byakin of Russia and Dave Manson of Canada as defencemen and Petr Briza of the Czech Republic as goalie.

Russia finished round-robin play with a dismal 2-2-1 record and only placed third behind Sweden and Canada in pool A.