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Qwerty 42 wrote:Did anyone watch the Snowboardcross? Terribly interesting stuff, I thought.

amazing, actually. Imagine a midair collision at 30 miles an hour.

The Dude wrote:It was nice of Angela Ruggiero to demonstrate her commitment to not running up the score by missing in the shootout.

Delicious......

who says the hockey gods don't have a sense of humor?

aerius wrote:The officiating by the US ref is starting to get stupid. There have been 2 questionable calls against Finland which resulted in goals by Canada, make that 3.

Ah, so it wasn't just my imagination then. The ref annoyed the fuck out of me for those. Not that it'd have changed the ultimate outcome of us going to the bronze medal game, but it still made me angry.

Though I have to say that the Finnish performance overall was rather pathetic, especially the skating speed, passing mistakes and not getting the puck out of the defensive area. Satu Sirviö (D) was especially prone to making too many mistakes and played far too softly. There's no question that the better team won.

Of course, I am now going to have to root for the Swedes in the women's final. I must have some compensation, after all!

Edi

Women's hockey? Amazing. Frankly, in my sports rank it's of the same value as curling. Extremely funny, but not really that interesting and kind of stupid.

Yeah, and the Russian olympics team is definetely kicking serious ass this year. Figure skating - lots of gold, skiing (!) - another gold. Good.

The Russian hockey team seems to be having some problems. They barely scraped a 1-0 win over Kazakhstan today, and the cohesion and skill that annihilated Sweden a couple of days ago were the stars of the field - by their absence.

Edi

What the hell? How did Canada lose to the Swiss in hockey??

Choose your poison; bad officiating, lousy power play, flat, and despite what Quinn says for the cameras, seriously underestimating your opponent

Geez, don't be a showboat and you get the gold. The American in snowboard cross attempted a trick, attempted to showboat, and paid the price for it. Finish the race, get the gold, and head on home. Don't be an idiot.

Yeah, but if those two Canadians hadn't fallen, then maybe she wouldn't have showboated.

As for the hockey, it doesn't look like they were outplayed, as they outshot the Swiss the entire game (I didn't actually watch the game). I think we can attribute the loss to the great goaltending on the part of the Swiss and the missed opportunites on the part of the Canadians.

Edit: fixed typo

I just finished watching the summary of the game. The Swiss played excellent defense which didn't allow the Canadians to use the pretty intricate patterns they often do as much as they would have liked. Gerber was also like a wall in the Swiss goal. The one they checked from the video tapes he caught right over the goal line. It was literally within fractions of an inch from being a legitimate goal.

I've also noticed that the refereeing with regard to calling penalties is very, very strict. Shit that has long been taken for granted despite being against the rules is being called almost always, which results in a lot of power plays. Canada plays a lot of dirty hockey in the sense that they do everything they are allowed to get away with. It was biting them hard in the ass here, because it results in a lot more penalties for them. The Russia - Kazakhstan game also had a comparatively ridiculous amount of penalties called, but none of them were false calls.

In general, the officiating in men's hockey has been pretty good so far. Canada also didn't play very well as a team, certainly nowhere near to what they are capable of.

Edi

CarsonPalmer wrote:Geez, don't be a showboat and you get the gold. The American in snowboard cross attempted a trick, attempted to showboat, and paid the price for it. Finish the race, get the gold, and head on home. Don't be an idiot.

I saw the replay and couldn't stop laughing. Look at me! I've won!
Whoops, maybe not...

The Czech - Finland match is shaping up to be a real nailbiter. Situation after first period is 1-1, and it's top notch hockey on both sides. And both teams need the win really badly...

Edi

J wrote:What the hell? How did Canada lose to the Swiss in hockey??

By scoring fewer goals than they did?

Some ugly shit went down in the 2nd period of FIN-CZE. Jarkko Ruutu put Jagr out of the game with a vicious boarding tackle to the head (not sure if it was intentional, didn't look like it all the way). Jagr had his forehead split open and dripping blood all over, Ruutu got 5+20 as deserved and the whole period turned completely chaotic. Situation 2-2 and the prospect of the 3rd period is scary. If Jagr got as badly injured as it looked, it might be the end of the tournament for him and the Czechs will be justifiably livid about it.

Edi

FIN-CZE final score 4-2, which means Finland has won all three games of its so far. Win against Canada tomorrow and we'll have won the first round in our group.

Oh, and ski jumping for the big hill was a disappointment. Matti Hautamäki was 5th, Janne Ahonen 9th, and the medals went to Austria (gold and silver) and Norway.

Edi

Col. Crackpot wrote:

Qwerty 42 wrote:Did anyone watch the Snowboardcross? Terribly interesting stuff, I thought.

amazing, actually. Imagine a midair collision at 30 miles an hour.

Amazing. In the Women's snowboard event, the US favorite got into an early lead. She pulled about five seconds ahead of everyone else, and two of them had even wiped off the track, one with real injuries. She speeds to the last little bump, jumps in the air and...

...decides to showboat and do a TRICK. She lands on her face, and loses the gold just a few feet from the finish.

Way to go, representing the USA there. Showing off, then screwing up...

Master of Ossus wrote:

J wrote:What the hell? How did Canada lose to the Swiss in hockey??

By scoring fewer goals than they did?

Yeah, just rub it in there why don't you...let me sulk in peace you smartass... *grumbles*

J wrote:

Master of Ossus wrote:

J wrote:What the hell? How did Canada lose to the Swiss in hockey??

By scoring fewer goals than they did?

Yeah, just rub it in there why don't you...let me sulk in peace you smartass... *grumbles*

Well, the US lost to the Slovaks, so you can console yourself with the fact that they are even worse off than Canada. Of course, after we win tonight's game, that might be subject to debate...

Edi

Edi
Problems in the Russian hockey team, eh? We just let the Kazakhstan team (which is actually nothing more than a second Russian team, since there's not a single Kazakh in there ) have it easy.

After all, Kazakhstan is a "brotherly nation"

Just watch what we did to Latvia.

Palpatine's "Only now, young fool, you understand" would be the best phrase to describe this massacre.

I saw some of that, Stas. It seems like Russia is alternating between brilliant and abysmal in every other game, so if we need to play against them, we'll just need to pick a game where they're scheduled to suck and there shouldn't be a problem.

Edi

Finland wins 2-0 against Canada and wins Group A. King of the ice today was unquestionably Antero Niittymäki, the Great Wall of Finland. There were some pretty hair-raising situations where he saved us.

Edi

This will not be an Olympics to remember for our men. We really needed that win. But hear me Edi, the gold medal dreams of the Finns will not last long. They will be defeated. We will not pull a US Dream-Team here.

I'll blame the Canadian loss on Pat Quinn, who is among the most incompetant coaches ever. When a team as loaded with talent as Canada fails to achieve results and keeps making the same mistakes again & again, well, coaching has to take the blame for that. Putting the same lines on the ice to make the exact same set plays which fail over & over again is just plain dumb. To summarize, they've achieved the mediocrity of the Maple Leafs.

Women did their job, now it's up to the men.

Brian

Fuck, I missed the game. Oh well, it'll be on again tonight (at least I hope it will be).