USA Beats Russia, Oshie Relentless

I have a time or two made some pretty foolish predictions, but when I said that the U.S. were going to surprise a lot of people and were the new favorites to win gold in the Sochi Olympics, it is beginning to seem like I wasn’t wrong.

Russia was left stunned by the U.S. in a shoot out. More particularly they were stunned by U.S. player T.J. Oshie who stormed onto the ice and scored for goals for the US, helping his team go over Russia, 3-2. Oshie silenced the Russian fans, which included Vladimir Putin, when he scored the game-winning goal.

The Sochi Olympics may have been played up as a neutral playing field, but Russia definitely had home court advantage, as the Russian fans were screaming throughout the entire game, until Oshie scored the goal that put the U.S. over Russia.

This game was important for a number of reasons.  For one it featured some of the best hockey players in the world going at it.  For two, there is the socio-political side of the game.  While it is clearly not the cold war anymore that political and social rivalry between the U.S. and Russia is well documented. 

I am not sure how much of those types of issues were on the mind of the U.S. players, but Oshie has been touted as an American hero for leading his team to an upset victory over Russia.

Now all the U.S. has to do is defeat Slovenia tomorrow in order to get a bye into the quarterfinals.  This was an important win of the U.S. but their road to gold is not over yet, in fact it was very little impact on the gold medal race.  Their road to gold will likely take them to Canada at some point, who are the favorites to win the gold according to the future odds.