Olympic Hockey in Full Swing
The arrival of the NHL players to Sochi signals that the Olympic Games are now officially on. True, other sports in the winter Olympics are exciting to watch. Watching skiers fly down a mountain at over 90MPH is great. Watching snowboarders fly through the air is too. Even the biathlon has been intriguing. And bobsledding and the luge is just flat out awesome. But hockey is what we come to the Winter Olympics to watch.
Since the break up of the Soviet Union and the use of NHL players by every country, the field is now wide open. Sweden, for example, he a team entirely made up of NHL players. So every game in this tournament should be intense. Gone are the days of 15-0 routs for the most part.
On Wednesday, the Team Sweden took on Team Czech Republic in the afternoon while Team Switzerland battled Team Latvia at the same time. If it is high scoring you like, the Sweden Czech game was for you. If you like a hard hitting defensive game, then you liked Switzerland vs Latvia.
Latvia was projected to be the bottom team of this four team Group C. But they did not play like it against the favored Swiss team. In fact, this game looked like it was headed for overtime until the Swiss finally scored on on goal from Nino Neittermayer with 7.9 seconds left in the third period. A win like that could prople the Swiss the rest of the way.
Sweden jumped out to a 4-0 lead against the Czechs early in the second period. Erik Karlsson scored with 10:00 left in the first period and three minutes later they made it 2-0 on a Patrik Berglund goal. Then in the second, Henrik Zetterburg scored less than a minute into the period to make it 3-0 and then Karlsson scored his second goal of the game to make it 4-0 just 4:07 into the period. It appeared the rout was on but the Czech’s fought back to make it a game. Merek Zidlicky scored at 8:00 into the second period and then Jaromir Jagr at age 41 scored to cut the lead to 4-2 at 10:01.
But all the scoring halfway through the game was all there would be as nobody scored in the second half of the game. The Czechs had several power play chances but could not convert as they fell to 0-1.
The other eight teams in the tournament will be in action tomorrow. In Group A Slovenia will take on host Russia and the United States will take on Slovakia. In Group B Austria will take on Finland and the Canada faces Norway.
In women’s Hockey, Team Canada beat Team USA 3-2 in what looks like a preview of the Gold Medal game. Team USA had a two skater advantage at the end but could not get the game tying score as Canada held on for the win. An inadvertent whistle that could have nullified a Canadian goal by Haley Wickenheiser was ignored and allowed to stand. That goal seemed to turn the momentum as it gave Canada a 2-1 lead that they made 3-1 on a break away goal by Meghan Agosta for their third goal of the third period..
