The 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi are winding down in a hurry ahead of this weekend’s closing ceremonies, but the drama in hockey is just ramping up.
The United States’ women did the impossible yesterday, losing a late third period two goal lead before the zebras put on an abominable officiating exhibition for the ages in overtime, resulting in a gold medal for the Canadian ladies and a powerful inspiration for their male counterparts this afternoon.
Before another possible punch to the gut of American hockey fans, however, it’s Finland and Sweden at 6:00am on NBC Sports Network here in Texas.
Those two have not played a high profile game like this since the 2006 gold medal final in Turin, where Sweden triumphed by a score of 3-0 thanks to goals by three Red Wings: Lidstrom, Zetterberg and Kronwall.
Here is funny bit from some former Maple Leaf who went back to Europe:
Finnish forward Leo Komarov swiped at the Swedes when he was asked which players on Sweden the Finns needed to shut down.
“I don’t know. Who is playing on their team?” he asked. “(Nicklas) Backstrom? He’s pretty good. Ummm, who else? (Daniel) Sedin is playing forward? I don’t know their team.” [Niagara Falls Review]
Funny stuff.
Finland will be doing it for Teemu. Sweden will be looking to see if special teams and goaltending brilliance continue to be enough. Tuukka Rask is expected to start. Kari Lehtonen is expected to stay nice and rested over there on the bench.
At 11:00am CST on NBC Sports Network the U.S. men will try to stop a Canadian forward group that looks ready to break out of a scoring slump. All of them. Like every single one of them. Especially Sidney Crosby.
Jonathan Quick will have his work cut out for him, and the team supporting him simply must stay out of the penalty box.
We’ll see you here for the GDT and the antacids and whatnot.
From CBS Sports:
Odds and ends
Canada -110
USA -110(CAN @ USA) – Total Goals in the game?
Over/Under 5½
(CAN @ USA) – Who will record more points in the game?
Sidney Crosby (CAN) 8/5
Phil Kessel (USA) 7/4
Draw 3/2
Yeah! You’ve got Crosby and we’ve got, uhhhh…. Phil Kessel? Ahhhh, man…
(He’s been pretty good)
