The Worldstars left the arena with a cup they didn't know they were competing for.
The Worldstars team of locked out NHL players beat a Russian all-star squad 5-4 on Sunday, a day after losing 5-4 to a much stronger group of Russian stars in Moscow.
That's when they learned it was a two-game total goals series and that it needed a shootout to decide the winner.
Mats Sundin and Luc Robitaille beat goaltender Andrei Mezin on penalty shots while Martin Brodeur, outstanding all night, stoned all but Dmitri Zatonsky to secure the victory.
''(The victory) is something,'' said Sundin. ''They had two good teams and we travelled so it's a nice win for us.''
That gave them a big silver trophy for winning the Super Series Challenge, which could become an annual event if the NHL stays locked out for years.
''That was a bit of a surprise,'' said assistant coach Marty McSorley. ''They wanted 4-on-4 overtime, but with a number of our guys going to Igor's game, we couldn't do it.''
Brodeur is among the Worldstars who are to skip the next stop on the tour Monday in the Czech Republic to take part in retired NHL veteran Igor Larionov's gala farewell game in Moscow that night.
Worldstars Brodeur, Ray Whitney and Luc Robitaille are to play in the farewell match, as are Sergei Fedorov and Kris Draper, who opted to stay behind in Moscow. Brendan Shanahan is flying in for the game and then is to join the Worldstars in Switzerland on Tuesday.
Former coach Scotty Bowman, who watched the Worldstars in Moscow, will also be there.
New York Rangers boss Glen Sather is also going, but he stopped in for the Worldstars game in St. Petersburg and pronounced it ''brutal.''
''It was an exhibition game - no intensity. Really, what you'd expect. And I don't think they were the best Russian players.''
He was right on all counts.
The best Russians, including young stars Pavel Datsyuk, Ilya Kovalchuk and Alexander Ovechkin, played on Saturday in Moscow in a much harder-fought, faster-paced game than the sequel in St. Petersburg.
Sunday's Russian squad came out for a glorified skate and the undermanned, still jet-lagged Worldstars, who had to use slow-footed defencemen Barret Jackman and Sean O'Donnell as forwards, were happy to oblige.
Jackman tried to get the Russians going with a jarring open ice hit on a defenceman three minutes into the game, but the Russians didn't respond.
''I had an opportunity to hit him so I did,'' said Jackman. ''That's the only way I know how to play.
''It seemed like an all-star game. The last game, they had a younger team with more energy, but this one, they just kind of stayed back and waited for things.''
The Worldstars, expecting a game more like the first one, took advantage of loose Russian play to strike first when Sundin scored at 9:42 of the first. After Dimitri Ryabykin tied it four minutes later, Sundin assisted on John-Michael Liles' goal at 15:34.
Mattias Norstrom and Whitney made it 4-1 for the Worldstars before Ruslan Salei got one back on a power play at 12:51 of the second frame.
Glen Murray got the game-winner 9:20 into the third period, but Viktor Kozlov and Sergei Krivokrasov scored to make it 5-4 and tie the series.
Had Brodeur not stoned Maxim Sushinsky on a breakaway late in the third, the Worldstars might never have even made it to the shootout.
''It was tough,'' said Brodeur, who had beaten the other Russian squad in the breakaway drill in a skills competition on Saturday. ''They pass the puck so well, it's hard on the goalie.
''But it felt good to play a whole game. It's been a while.''
Dominik Hasek played the entire game on Saturday.
A subplot to the game was the presence of huge defenceman Alexander Yudin, said to be the toughest player in the Russian Superleague and who reportedly was out to get Tie Domi.
During the final frame, the crowd began chanting Yudin's name whenever Domi was on the ice. But when they later were on the ice together, they ignored each other.
''They said no fights,'' said Yudin. ''We played game, it's beautiful.''
''They just said that to sell tickets - and it worked,'' said Domi, adding there was ''no chance'' he would go along with that scheme. ''I wouldn't even consider it.''
McSorley was pleased nothing happened.
''We didn't want that,'' he said. ''I was happy that both Tie and his counterpart said, `Let's play and have a good hockey game.' We're here for good will and to play hockey.''
The roughly 10,000-seat arena was almost full, although it had one too many spectators - the one who threw a banana on the ice when Anson Carter, who is black, was playing.
That happened on a day in which the English language St. Petersburg Times had a front page story about attacks on ethnic minorities in the city.
''It's no big deal,'' said Carter, adding. ''I'm not surprised, look around.''
The Russian team in Moscow was the national side that is to play in the Rosno (formerly Izvestia) Cup this month. In St. Petersburg, where fans were quieter a waved fewer Russian flags, it was an entirely different group.
It included NHL players Salei, Kozlov, Krivokrasov and Nik Antropov.
Defenceman Dmitri Yushkevich, a longtime NHLer, got to play against former Toronto teammates Sundin and Domi.
''It was fun to see those guys, I played with the for many years,'' he said. ''It was also a chance to test ourselves against some great players.''
The Worldstars continue their 10-game tour of Europe on Monday in Pilzen, Czech Republic against a group of Czech and Slovak all-stars. They're 2-1 through three games, having beaten Riga 2000 4-2 in their opener.
