USA will play Canada on Sunday

Just for some quick notes, the United States will look to win their first gold medal in 30 years against Canada on Sunday at 3pm EST.

Canada played tonight against Slovakia and seemed to be in control of the game, leading 3-0 after 2 periods. Canada kept getting power plays, and if Slovakia was lucky enough to even get a shot off on Luongo, Luongo was impossible to break through.

About halfway through the game, Slovakia finally was able to get one shot past Luongo to make the game 3-1. But after this, Slovakia suddenly obtained more opportunities down in the Canadian zone, and with 5 minutes to go, Michal Handzus scored for Slovakia, and they were only down by 1 goal.

The rest of the game was spent in the Canadian defensive zone, and had Pavol Demitra not BARELY missed a wide open net, the game would have gone into overtime. Who knows what would have happened then?!

Nonetheless, Canada held on and won 3-2.

People get your drinks up, it's "Hockey Day in North America" - via @stlblueschica on Twitter.

USA wins 4-2 against Canada.

A very shaky Canadian team that hasn't quite gelled yet, a confident and determined Team USA with Ryan Miller in net should aid in a gold medal for the Unites States of America.

I haven't really thought about it, but I woul dhave no clue as to how I will react if Team USA was to win it all. It would probably be extremely surreal, so it probably won't hit me for a bit. Regardless, expect me to be super happy and doing something silly.

Unfortunately, the silly thing would not be having the privilege to miss my psychology midterm on Monday; my professor is Canadian. No way I'm gonna get out of that one.

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On a side note, in regards to the Canadian women's celebration, I have mixed feelings.

I'm okay with OPENING the bottle of CHAMPAGNE on the ice, to be honest. I mean, after all, it is their home ice, and it must be pretty special.

But, on the other hand, BEER? Really ladies? Beer on the ice? And trust me, being a lady who is used to hanging out with the boys, I'm not mad at them because they are women and drinking. But that's just not classy. If the men won the gold medal there, I would oppose them drinking on the ice as well, especially beer. I mean, rappers don't pop beer anyway.
Either way, I'm not a fan of the move by the Canadian ladies.

They were wrong, and I hate that they even apologized, because a.) they weren't sorry; therefore, b.) the apology was half-assed. Their "apology" is not accepted by me.

We're exposing a lot of impolite and hostile things about our "peaceful" neighbors. LOL... of course I love all my Canadian folks though. You all are fantastic and DIE-HARD fans. *whisper voice* but we're beating you Sunday ;).

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Finally, I looked on ESPN, and they had Zach Parise talking, but had labeled it was Jamie Langenbrunner speaking. Sigh... Even at this point, they still give hockey the poop-end of the stick.

From here on out, GO USA! (And props to Slovakia! I have them winning bronze)

USA Defeats Switzerland 2-0

If you thought the USA vs. Canada game was thrilling, then you were peeing in your pants watching the United States barely but surely earn the victory against the Swiss by a score of 2-0.

The game was a very fun and exciting game to watch from the standpoint of a fan. It was scoreless until the last second of the second period... well, we thought the tie was broken. Unfortunately for the Americans, time had expired before the puck crossed the line, so the goal was disallowed.

A few people's nerves were worked up after that incident, and were worried that Team USA wouldn't be able to penetrate the Swiss wall that was Jonas Hiller and might lose.

The third period had another instance where the puck went into the net. This time... it was the same result. USA goal was disallowed, except this time, it was because Ryan Kessler interfered with Hiller. This came right after Switzerland also had a disqualified goal because the puck went off the inside of the post, and never crossed the line.

Team USA disproved all critics though, as Zach Parise of the NJ Devils finally scored about 2 minutes into the third period.

For the rest of the game, however, the game went back and forth between possessions. Both teams had quality shots on net at this point, and there were so many power plays. With USA only up by one goal, it was a very nerve-wrecking experience for fans of either side. Anybody could still win this.

Then with about a minute left in the game, Switzerland pulled Hiller and went on attack in the American's zone. USA did a good job of clearing the puck out though, and eventually, Parise grabbed the puck in Swiss territory, and scored the empty next goal with 11 seconds remaining.

From a hockey mind, this game was AWFUL! Exciting still? Yes. But the American power play was atrocious. Not just because they didn't score, but they had such a difficult time setting up their power play. USA struggled with lost pucks into neutral zone, and offensive zone turnovers. The Swiss had a handful of short-handed opportunities, and that's too many for one game.

If the Americans want to prepare themselves for the winner of the Czech/Finnish game and potentially a rejuvenated Team Canada for the gold medal, they are going to have to minimize their mistakes. If the Swiss were that close to scoring on short handed opportunities, imagine a team like Canada getting the same chances.

Thankfully, Ryan Miller has been fantastic throughout the Olympics; whether he was under intense pressure (against Canada - 42 saves) or if he was not challenged (against Switzerland -19 saves). He has been the one source of consistency for the United States, and if all else fails, at least folks can rely on him to keep the score low for USA to make a move.

Team USA can also rely on their faceoff crew, who saved the team in a lot of situations where the Swiss would be in their zone.

We'll be waiting now for the Finnish team to beat the Czechs so that they can play on Friday for the semifinals. I'm ready to watch so let's go!


In other USA news, the USA women's team will play Canada tomorrow at 3:30pm for the gold medal. That wasn't really news, as we all knew the two teams would meet. But we'll see who actually wins the medal. You know how I'll pick... USA!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I'd have to say that I am utterly disappointed in the Russia/Canada game. Russia LOST the game 7-4. It was an awful, atrocious showing - or lack thereof - against Canada, who was ready to play. A team who was ready to play facing off against a team that felt like sleeping in a quarterfinal game makes for... a boring ass game like the one we just saw.

Oh well, a tout a leur to Russia. T'was fun we're moving on with Finland/Czech Republic and Sweden/Slovakia. I predict an EXTREMELY exciting finish to this tournament. GO USA!

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A little shoutout also to Finnish player Lasse Kukkonen and Team Canada's Shea Weber. Word has it they checked out this page and liked it. Whether they read it again is another issue, but hey! They read it once! Ha!

http://baltimore.sportsthenandnow.com/2010/02/alex-ovechkin-russia%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cpinch-hitter%E2%80%9D/ Peep this by the way... this is my first post on Sports Then and Now about the Ovechkin hit against Jagr in Sunday's Czech/Russian game.

Enjoy!