Olympic Hockey II

[KrazyHorse]

Kipper will be in net for Canada.

****ing sweet were that to happen. Except for the fact that he's a ***** who couldn't be bothered to play for his native country this time around...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Tingkai
And by the way, the band Crosby Stills and Nash are not Canadian.

Not really, but Young was, and he was three times the man Crosby, Stills, or Nash were, and thus the Band was overwhelmed with his Canadian-ness.

[Asher]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
****ing sweet were that to happen. Except for the fact that he's a ***** who couldn't be bothered to play for his native country this time around...

He doesn't get along with the Finland honchos, from what I understand. They had a bit of a falling out after the World Cup, or something.

[Tingkai]

And that would be CSNY.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Tingkai
And that would be CSNY.

/me throttles Tingkai.

[KrazyHorse]

Tingkai, you lose. Asher made me laugh till I hurt with that pun.

[Tingkai]

Asher gets two minutes for roughing, and a 10 minute misconduct for not knowing the difference between CSN and CSNY. A dumb penalty as he would say.

[KrazyHorse]

Double 5 minute majors on tingkai for humourlessness and pedantry

[Tingkai]

Friggen ref needs glasses.

[KrazyHorse]

Game misconduct for "abusing an official", or whatever the hell got called on Team Canada at the end of the 2nd

[Tingkai]

And I hate to admit it, but I did groan after clicking on the woosh Asher posted - a double groan, one for the pun and one for me missing it.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Asher
If we had a line of Crosby - Staal - Nash, we'd have won. If only because of Canadiana.

A rare example of humor from Asher

[Pekka]

Yeah but one has to wonder about the young firepower. Would it have made any difference, well, Canada was shut out in the QF, so you never know. I said after the game against Finns that Quinn is bringing hungry guys since two consecutives shutouts, meaning Staal and the boys who were there already. I mean you play 120 minutes without goal. You have a team full of monsters, but they aren't performing, what do you do, you bring out the young guns who have more heart than brains.

I was surprised this didn't happen. Very surprised. Because they would have had game against Czechs to get into the tourney before the deciding QF game.

It's all ifs and buts but I think Quinn made a mistake, a grave mistake not bringing them in after the team was in despair for scorers who perform. It was like bumping your head to a wall for some time, but instead of bringing new heads, qualified heads to bump, they same heads kept doing it. I just can't see how a good coach and afford not trying out the other hungry ones, after all, they weren't just merely back ups, but top of the line folks. And he had time to do it, he never did, he didn't even try. And Nabokov shut out the team, so I guess it's fair to say the route Quinn took didn't work.

[Kontiki]

One name I've been surprised hasn't been bantied about by, well, anyone that I've seen, is Tanguay. The guy was actually at the original camp in August (?) and is fast, relatively young and ripping it up this year (and has been pretty solid and only getting better since entering the league). Yet I haven't heard people say he should have been there, nor speculate on him being on the 2010 team.

[Pekka]

Time for semis.

I think Sweden is strong today. I also think both Russia and Finland are strong today. Our keys to victory will be to get that extra energy back that we lost in the US game. THat, and disciplined play. We need to control the puck and not be afraid to hold it. We have much tighter lines, with offense supporting the D, this is our key and will be versus the firepower of Russian offense. That, and the classical goalie vs goalie. Nabokov has been impressive. But so has Niittymäki.

We need to hold the puck and play tight to frustrate their offense, they like holding the puck so much, if we get to keep if and control it playing tight, I feel we can frustrate them and have them go for individual plays too much, and when it goes to that, I feel we will win. We lost our #1 defenseman, Salo.... which sucks. So the leader of that end is gone for us, so now more than ever, they need to play tight and smart. But holding the puck, not throwing it away and giving chances for fast and strong offense to pick them apart.

We are little bit underdogs for this game, which I think works for us better. They will play better as underdogs, as always.

It will be one tight game!! Of course I hope we win it though. Not sure about it. I said early in this tournament that I want our team to avoid Russia as long as possible, because of the firepower it has. I think our team play is better, I think our D is better, but Nabokov isn't showing weakness so I can't say our goalie is better. And their offense is definitely better so.. we'll see!

US game was difficult for us, but after the game and yesterday during the practice and all the statements, they're like little boys.. the vets are all like it's christmas coming, you can just see the energy in those guys. It's rarely you see that kind of reaction, special, like anticipating that something great will happen, something unique. They're just joking and pulling pranks there, so I feel they are extremely unified and ready to go. A day or two more wouldn't make the difference, they're ready now, win or lose, this is what we came for today. Because that's very untyopical for Finns, to be smiling and making jokes and stuff before important games. It's not a bad sign, it's definitely a good sign, ti means they have energy and confidence and they will leave everything to the rink today.