Olympic Hockey Thread

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Tingkai
So I'm watching the women's Finn vs Swiss game. It's like watching peewee hockey. They're all so short.

At the top level -- women's hockey is about equivalent to midget hockey for boys. The Canadian team trained against Calgary area midget teams because it was a very good challenge. Even at age 17 the boys were generally much bigger and stronger than all but a couple of the women's national team

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Tingkai


You mean the one where the Canadian hit the Russian who then flew off and took out another Russian. Two years ago?

That was definitely a classic.

While there were a couiple of REALLY notable hits, I was talking more about the relentless pounding he gave to the Russians shift after shift after shift. He was the leader but all the canadians were doing it. By midway through the second canada had a big lead IIRC and the Russians most certainly had little appetite for contesting the puck in Canada's zone

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Tingkai




Here's a new flash: Hockey writers travel around the country covering league games. The hockey writers in Toronto are not all born and bred here. There are guys like Eric Duhatschek, who worked for years out west (in his case, at the Calgary Herald). These guys know hockey.

I don't know how this will play out this year but I will ve very interested to see how things like awards etc play out this year. teams play 72 games in their own conference and 10 against the other one. This could easily lead to some regional divides in how the voting goes for awards voted by sportswriters or managers. Some performances will definitely transcend geography but the NHL this year is a lot more like baseball with two leagues and just a little "inter-league" play than it is one siongle league.

Originally posted by Tingkai


And I can say he's not a sniper because of his lack of accuracy. I't not talking about how hard he shoots.

Hmm-- I don't see how you get a lack of accuracy out of Phaneuf getting a lot of shots ON net. If he missed more wouldn't he have FEWER shots. Anyway Phaneuf shoots a lot from long range .. .. the type of range where a good goalie should usually stop you but which is great for deflections, tips and rebounds. . . . and a suprising number of his shots get through. While he does pinch and join the rush, he usually seems to take care of defense first. So it doesn't surprise me that he has a lot of shots. If he was a forward or someone that pinched a lot more and so was in close more often, I would expect his goal-scoring percentage to rise. Or if the Flames offense could ever get in gear such that teams couldn't focus a bit on defending agains Phaneuf . .. a more balanced and strong Calgary attack would help

[Footie Mad]

Canada just getting started on beating Sweden in womens hockey now. Our manager doesn't even want to play the first choice keeper, to give the other keeper experience, way to believe in yourself.

[Kontiki]

The coach of the Italian women's team was seriously quoted as saying her goal was to stay within 20 goals of Canada. They ended up losing 16-0, so it was a banner day for Italian women's hockey.

In typical Canadian fashion, however, the Canadian women's coach apparently received numerous angry emails from people back home that we shouldn't have run up the score like that!

[Asher]

Heh, the organ at the game is playing Coldplay's "Talk"...

[Asher]

Hmm-- I don't see how you get a lack of accuracy out of Phaneuf getting a lot of shots ON net. If he missed more wouldn't he have FEWER shots.

Yep...if anything McCabe's fewer shots, despite his higher ice time (by ~8 minutes a game) and his offensive penchant compared to Phaneuf, I'm willing to bet he misses the net far more than Phaneuf.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Asher

Yep...if anything McCabe's fewer shots, despite his higher ice time (by ~8 minutes a game) and his offensive penchant compared to Phaneuf, I'm willing to bet he misses the net far more than Phaneuf.

talking about icetime, its not surprising that Phaneuf gets less than Mccabe. Calgary has an overall strong defence and you don't exactly want folks like Leopold, Hamrlik and Regher sitting on the bench. Calgary's 5 and 6 men would compare well with Toronto's number 3 and 4


As I said earlier I don't blame or fault Hockey Canada for going with experience-- However I can't shake my belief that if Phaneuf had been on the Olympic team you would have seen a huge coming out party where the whole world would get to see how truly good he is already

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kontiki
The coach of the Italian women's team was seriously quoted as saying her goal was to stay within 20 goals of Canada. They ended up losing 16-0, so it was a banner day for Italian women's hockey.

Well my understanding is that they would not have qualifide on their own merits and are only in the event as "host"

Originally posted by Kontiki


In typical Canadian fashion, however, the Canadian women's coach apparently received numerous angry emails from people back home that we shouldn't have run up the score like that!

That's Canadian sportsmanship for you.

Its funny because running ip the score can get you the "home-team" advantage in key games like in the finals. I don't know if Canada line-matches against the Americans but being home team can help with that.


Its always tough when facing a weaker team. In my "beer league" there is a team that we always beat by 10 goals or so. You stop trying so hard but if they give you a breakaway or something, you have to try to score. To turn away is even more embarrasing than a high score.

[Peter Triggs]

Well it's hardly surprising that the Canadian women beat the Italians 16-0:

Italy has a total of 373 female players compared to Canada's 66,000, and has only four women's hockey clubs.

So the game was actually a breakthrough for the Italian women because they played in front of 8,399 - far more spectators than they'd ever had before - at Palasport Olympico, and woke their country up to the fact that women do play hockey here.

http://www.tsn.ca/olympics/news_story/?ID=154499&hubname=olympics

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
Well it's hardly surprising that the Canadian women beat the Italians 12-0:



http://www.tsn.ca/olympics/news_stor...bname=olympics

Italy it was 16-0-- They beat the Russians 12-0

[Kontiki]

We only beat Sweden 8-1. Losing our edge.

[Peter Triggs]

Duh, yeah. I'm having more and more of these 'senior moments'.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kontiki
We only beat Sweden 8-1. Losing our edge.

Ya since Sweden is expected to compete for broze


Actually there have to be more nations a bit more competitive for it to be taken seriously as an Olympic sport-- When only two teams compete and the rest lose by wide margins, that's not good for the sport

[Flubber]

Men's hockey

Canada is dominating Italy

6-2 in the second period-- but the Italians are much better than I expected . . They seem well coached just not as skilled as the canadians- Italy is playing decent defence . . It will be interesting to see if they can have some competitive games against some of the other weaker teams