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Friday, February 26, 2010

Sports Olympic Hockey: Take a Long Lunch!

Posted by Courtney Kelly on Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 12:17 PM

Today both of the Olympic Hockey Semi-final games will be played. First at noon PST Team USA will play Finland and at 6:30 pm PST host Canada will play Slovakia. The winner of each of these games will meet in the gold-medal game Sunday at 12:15 pm PST. Today’s losers will meet in the consolation bronze medal game Saturday at 7 pm PST. After struggling with a pretty poor user interface on the NBC TV Listings website it looks like all of these games will be on regular NBC.

American fans, Canadian fans, and certainly NBC and their sponsors are all hoping for a Canada-USA gold medal final. Odds-makers seems to be expecting that as well, though Olympic betting is a tricky off-shore entanglement, frowned on by the IOC and practically limited to only the most degenerate sports gamblers, myself included.

The USA comes into today’s first game riding high off a win over Switzerland that, while a nail-biter score-wise, was always in USA control. I certainly never expected the score at the end of two periods to be 0-0, (a contested last-second no-goal actually seems like the right call). You could say Zach Parise saved the day with his power-play go-ahead goal (and nail-in-coffin empty-netter), but in reality Mighty Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller was playing the game of his life to keep it a shutout and he could only hold back the tide so long. At the end of the second period, the USA had outshot Switzerland 32 to 8 and sooner or later that offensive onslaught was going to prove out on the scoreboard.

Finland reached the Semis against USA having shut out the Czech Republic in their quarterfinal with goals from Niklas Hagman and an empty-netter from Valtteri Filppula. The Calgary Flame’s goalie Miikka Kiprusoff is playing well and will be difficult for team USA to score against. I think this game might play out like the Switzerland game, with USA coming out ahead if they get a lot more offensive chances. They’ve been playing aggressively and there’s no sign they will let up now. Watch for experienced captain Jamie Langenbrunner to lead the offensive charge.

This evening’s Canada vs. Slovakia game will decide the other half of the gold medal final. After some shaky moments, Canada is now playing like they’ve been shot out of a cannon. They annihilated the very strong, gold-medal-favorite Russians 7-3, putting 4 goals in Nabokov’s net in the first period. I’m pretty sure he can’t go back to Russia and is now seeking asylum from Canada. Slovakia is the closet thing we have left to a Cinderella and their narrow win over Norway surprised most and kept the drama at a fever pitch. Look for Canadian fans to urge their team toward another dominating performance tonight.

Comments (25) RSS

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"The Calgary Flame’s goalie Miikka Kiprusoff is playing well and will be difficult for team USA to score against. "

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
I have incredible reverse jinx power!

Posted by Courtney Kelly on February 26, 2010 at 12:29 PM

Oh my! What a bloodbath! 6-0 USA at 7:00 left in the first?!?!? Miikka Kiprusoff is already in the showers and will shortly be looking for the same witness protection program in which Nabokov has enrolled.

Posted by Courtney Kelly on February 26, 2010 at 12:31 PM

Wow. Thanks NBC!!!! Yesterday's listings said the game was going to be shown delayed--as usual--at 3 p.m. so I set my recorder for then, since after all they NEVER show these games live.

So I read this post, turn on the TV and the games already all but over! And I missed the best 12 minutes of USA hockey action ever!

Thank goodness we're not getting the Canadian TV feed this year since they always show EVERYTHING live!

Posted by Irate on February 26, 2010 at 12:37 PM

Well...this is no longer worth watching. I stopped watching Can-Rus at 6-1, so I'm going to call this a foregone conclusion now.

Posted by Canadian nurse on February 26, 2010 at 12:41 PM

Irate - yesterday's listings were clearly marked LIVE IN ALL TIME ZONES.

Courtney - excellent news, thanks for the heads-up.

Posted by wilbur@work on February 26, 2010 at 12:42 PM

Does the ctvolympics.ca website check your IP address and block American viewers? If not, it's pretty good (despite having to download and install Silverlight).

Posted by Canadian nurse on February 26, 2010 at 12:44 PM

@4 -Canadian Nurse, you have to be right. There is NO WAY Ryan Miller is giving up 6 goals in the next two periods. I was definitely for USA, but I feel a bit robbed and now I have to kill time for 5 1/2 hours until the Canada game. I think I'll just replay the first 13 min of this game on my DVR on a loop until then.

Posted by Courtney Kelly on February 26, 2010 at 12:53 PM

Go Slohockeya! Slovak 'n roll! I LOVE SLOVAKIA!

Posted by DS on February 26, 2010 at 1:01 PM

Thanks Wilbur! Turns out it's Comcast in this case, not NBC. For once.

Still, never had this problem when Canadian TV showed it.

Posted by Still Irate on February 26, 2010 at 1:15 PM

Currently KING 5 is showing the Gold Medal game tape-delayed on Sunday. Now that the US is playing in it, they better rectify that...

Posted by DOUG.

on February 26, 2010 at 1:25 PM

of course i couldn't watch the women's gold medal game live ANYWHERE yesterday. had to rely on live chat from folks up in .ca who could see it.

oh and @6 - yeah ctv blocks those of us south of the 49th...bah.

Posted by jezbian on February 26, 2010 at 1:55 PM

Let me just say this.

DAMN YOU TO HELL, NBC!

DAMN YOU TO HELL!

Thanks.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on February 26, 2010 at 2:12 PM

@11 Jezbian, I watched the girls skate yesterday and I was actually pretty impressed with the amount and force of the hitting. Certainly was closer than this game. Do be sure to check out Yahoo's slideshow of the Canuck ladies celebrating on the ice with cigars and cans of beer:
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouv…

I think I could hang with those girls.

@6 I tried to install Silverlight onto my Mac PowerBook 3 times and gave up.

Posted by Courtney Kelly on February 26, 2010 at 2:14 PM

I can't believe USA just did that to Finland. More proof that this has been the most awesome Winter Olympics EVER! (In the most awesome Winter Olympics city ever!)

Posted by cressona on February 26, 2010 at 2:56 PM

@13: Took me two tries on my MBA too. Can't wait to uninstall it after the olympics are over.

My roommate's friends with some of the Canadian girls, so she's been to non-Olympic level parties with them. I'm incredibly jealous of that, even. Can't imagine what last night would have been like.

Posted by Canadian nurse on February 26, 2010 at 3:00 PM

Thank you Courtney for calling him "Mighty Ducks" goalie Jonas Hiller. I don't think he ever was a member of the "Mighty" Ducks, just the Anaheim Ducks, but I still call them that all the time. Old habits are sometimes hard to break.

I've lived in So Cal all my life (ok I was 4 when I got here) had been a long time Dodger fan and got fed up when Baseball went on strike and took up Hockey and never looked back. I was never a Kings fan because they played in the old Forum in Inglewood and that place was way too c-r-e-e-p-y for me. I still have my "Mighty Ducks of Anaheim" license plate frame on my car and every once in a while someone notices it and laughs.

Ah, memories! U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.

Posted by linda with a y on February 26, 2010 at 3:59 PM

Canada winning 2-0 at the end of the first.

Posted by Canadian Nurse on February 26, 2010 at 7:11 PM

Goal on his knees! 3-0

Posted by Canadian nurse on February 26, 2010 at 7:52 PM

4:53 left. We got ourselves a game here.

Posted by Courtney Kelly on February 26, 2010 at 8:33 PM

Suddenly it's a nail-biter! 3-2 Canada

Posted by Canadian Nurse on February 26, 2010 at 8:35 PM

Courtney, you're here! Our boys have not been playing with any focus tonight. The team tonight isn't the same set of guys who crushed Russia.

Posted by Canadian nurse on February 26, 2010 at 8:38 PM

Cheap shot on Zednik.

Posted by Courtney Kelly on February 26, 2010 at 8:38 PM

Hi CN, well, they did just enough! That was a pretty exciting finish. Nice showing by Slovakia. I'm glad it was close at the end. I'm not sure Luongo could have held on 15 more seconds.

Posted by Courtney Kelly on February 26, 2010 at 8:44 PM

That was ridiculous. I think I stopped breathing for the last minute.

Slovakia definitely deserves the bronze. And Canada better remember how to bring their A game for 60 whole minutes.

Posted by Canadian nurse on February 26, 2010 at 8:46 PM

For the hockey lovers out there like me, I can't think of better showcases to the non-hockey fans to explain why we love this sport! The last three minutes of the Canada game and the first 12 minutes of the US game were great examples of the different emotions that hockey can provide.

Posted by nicholaus on February 27, 2010 at 8:50 AM