MOSCOW -- Former NHL star Alexei Yashin was named general manager of the Russian womens national team on Friday. The 39-year-old has played professional hockey for 21 years -- 12 in the NHL and nine in his native Russia. "I think for the ladies its a great gift for the new year," Russian Hockey Federation president Vladislav Tretiak said on the IIHF website. "Alexei is a fine man who did a lot for our country. The solution will benefit both our coaching staff and give new challenges to the general manager." Russia will host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The womens team recently started a tour in the United States with a series of games against college teams. Yashin won gold medals for his home country in the 1992 world junior championship and the 1993 world championship. He also helped Russia win silver at the 1998 Games in Nagano and bronze in Salt Lake City in 2002. The 2006 Olympics in Turin was his last major international tournament. After recording 781 points in 850 career NHL games, Yashin returned to Russia in 2007 and played for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, SKA St. Petersburg and most recently for CSKA Moscow. Yashin hasnt played since last spring and has not announced the end of his playing career. Russias next challenge will be the 2013 IIHF womens world championship in Ottawa next April. Yashin is quite familiar with the city -- he spent over half of his NHL career with the Senators. Cheap NFL Jerseys . The world No. 1 from Belarus figures to have a more difficult challenge in the semifinals when she goes up against Serena Williams. Azarenka, who captured her first career WTA singles title at this event in 2009, posted a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Kazakhstans Ksenia Pervak. Cheap Jerseys . The 68th edition goes back to touring the entire country after last years race was confined to the northern half of the Iberian peninsula. http://www.cheapjerseysfr... . Humphries, from Calgary, and Valouis, from Wakaw, Sask., finished with a two-run time of one minute 56.53 seconds. "We were close to pushing a start record for this track so it was a really good day for us," said Humphries, following her fourth national title. [url=http://www.cheapjerseysfromchinawholesalenfl.com/]cheap nfl jerseys china ., won the gold medal Saturday in the womens 100-metre butterfly to open the third and final stop on the Mare Nostrum swimming circuit. cheap jerseys from china . It was the first time since 2009 that Nestor has failed to reach the semifinals at the eight-team, year-end event. "Its definitely frustrating,, but it was not from a lack of effort," said Nestor. "We tried everything we had and left it all out there.UFA, Russia -- Mike Kunzle had two goals while Tanner Richard added three assists to lead Switzerland past Latvia 7-2 on Thursday at the world junior hockey tournament. The contest was the tournament opener for Switzerland in Group A while Latvia fell to 0-2 in the conference standings. The Swiss overcame an early 1-0 deficit to improve to 4-0 all-time against Latvia. Christoph Bertschy, Lukas Balmmelli, Sven Andrighetto, Sandro Zangger and Alessio Bertaggia had the other goals for Switzerland.dddddddddddd Swiss goalie Luca Boltshauser stopped 21 shots. Nikolajs Jelisejevs and Arturs Sevcenko replied for Latvia. Elvis Merzlikins started in goal for Latvia and stopped 25-of-30 shots before being relieved by Ivars Punnenovs to start the third. Punnenovs registered five saves. ' ' '