I'm very happy with Teams USA right now. The ladies play for gold this afternoon! That isn't much of a shock, as the US is clearly a favorite. But I think they have been playing a better team game than Canada, with sharper passing and better defensive cohesion. Yet it's hard to tell that any, one team is playing better than another when you have 12-0, 14-1, 9-0 scores. I'm still hopeful.
The Men's Team is another story. I am amazed at the team game they play. They stole that game against Canada, but have played well to deserve the #1 seed. They wore down a Swiss Team that's tough to score against. But 44+ shots later, and the victory was theirs last night. So, it's on to the semi-finals Friday. Announcers have looked past the Finnish Team and are announcing a Canada/USA re-match for gold. Why? Finland has been in an International final '04 and '06. The US has to go back to '02. Meanwhile, Canada tore through Germany and Russia. Germany, sure. But Russia? Wow. Maybe they took the USA loss personally. I was hoping, make that expecting, Sweden to put a stop to Canada. But they were upset by a Slovakia Team that found a way to win. As much as I want Canada to lose, I think Cindarella Slovakia won't make it to the Gold medal final.
The bottom line is that the games have been amazing. Latvia nearly upset the Czech Republic two nights ago, in an amazing 2-goal comeback game. The USA/Swiss and Finland/Czech Republic games were scoreless through 2 periods last night. It was good stuff. You can't ask for much more as a hockey fan.
I'm taking note of this now, as it may all come crashing down, if the Women settle for Silver and the Men lose to Finland. But I'm wearing my USA jersey to the gym every morning and it doesn't get any better than that.
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